Japan's Toyota Tsusho wins contract to design Uganda-Kenya crude pipeline

Kenya; Japan’s Toyota Tsusho has won a contract to design an oil export pipeline from Uganda to Kenya’s coast, a Kenyan official said yesterday, as the countries seek to start crude production.

The Uganda–Kenya Crude Oil Pipeline (UKCOP), will be constructed to transport crude oil from Uganda’s oil fields in Northern and Western Uganda to the Kenyan port of Lamu on the Indian Ocean coast.

Along the way the pipeline will pick up more crude oil from the Lokichar basin and other oil fields in northwestern Kenya and deliver it to Lamu for export.

Oil discoveries in Uganda and Kenya and gas deposits found off Tanzania and Mozambique have turned East Africa into a frontier for hydrocarbon exploration.

Landlocked Uganda is planning to start crude production in 2018, while in neighbouring Kenya, Tullow Oil and Africa Oil are expected to submit development plans in late 2015.

Kenya estimates its crude oil reserves to be about 1 billion barrels - which experts say is enough to make a pipeline viable even without Uganda, which estimates its reserves at 6.5 billion barrels.

In June, the two countries and Rwanda invited bids for a consultant to oversee a feasibility study and initial design for the construction of the 1,300 km (808 mile) pipeline estimated to cost about $4.5 billion.

“Toyota Tsusho have already been awarded the contract for the feasibility study and preliminary engineering design and their final report is expected by mid-April next year,” Energy Principal Secretary Joseph Njoroge said yesterday.

Kenya’s Government has said that the pipeline designer would also be required to supervise the construction of a fibre optic cable from Uganda’s oil fields in Hoima through the Lokichar basin in northwest Kenya, where the country has found oil deposits, to Kenya’s proposed Lamu port.

Tank terminals

The consultant is also expected to design tank terminals in Hoima, Lokichar and Lamu, the ministry said. South Sudan also plans to construct a pipeline from Unity State, linking to the UKCOP, as an alternative to its only current oil export route through Port Sudan in its northern neighbour, the Republic of Sudan.

The proposed pipeline out of South Sudan is expected to connect to the UKCOP near Lokichar to ferry crude oil from that country to the Coast for export.