Uganda and Kenya Embark on Ambitious 30-Year-Old Petroleum Importation Plan

Uganda and Kenya have embarked on the implementation of a 30-year-old petroleum importation plan that would see products moved by pipeline from Eldoret to Kampala.

The Minister of Energy and Mineral Development, Ruth Nankabirwa, and other officials have been meeting their counterparts in Kenya for new talks on the extension of the pipeline to the border.

The proposal to build the pipeline was conceived in 1995 as part of the resolutions of the Joint Co-ordinating Commission (JCC) and a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the two countries.

A feasibility study was done and a report was submitted in 1999 but the project went into limbo.

Under the plan, Kenya would build the line up to the border, while Uganda takes it on to Kampala, with the bigger plans involving an extension to Rwanda and Burundi.

About 90 percent of Uganda’s fuel imports come through Kenya and if this plan matures, it will go a long way in fending off the threat of Tanzania’s ports of Dar-es-Salaam and Tanga.

Nankabirwa says meetings in Nairobi are for planning purposes and build on the interaction between Presidents Yoweri Museveni and William Ruto in May when the deal was revived.