East Africa States close to picking consultant for oil export pipeline

Nairobi; Kenya: Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda are in the final stages of deciding on a consultant to oversee building a pipeline to pump the region's oil to the coast for export, a senior Kenyan Energy Ministry official said yesterday.

In June, the three countries invited bids for a consultant to oversee a feasibility study and initial design for the construction of a 1,300km oil pipeline to transport crude to the Kenyan coast.

"We are in the final stage of negotiating with the consultant who will do a feasibility study and the front end engineering design for a crude oil pipeline which should run from Hoima to coastal region of this country," Joseph Njoroge, principal secretary at the Ministry Energy and Petroleum, told an East African oil and gas conference.

"Very soon, early next month," Martin Heya, commissioner of petroleum at the same ministry, said of the award timing.

Njoroge said the consultant would be required to finish the study within five months. In addition to the pipeline, the consultant would be required to supervise the construction of a fibre optic cable from Hoima in Uganda through the Lokichar basin in northwest Kenya to Lamu, and tank terminals in Hoima, Lokichar and Lamu.

The project will also involve the construction of a 9km pipeline from the Lamu tank terminal to an offshore mooring buoys. Kenya's Energy Ministry has said having a single consultant for the whole project was to ensure consistency in the quality of the whole pipeline.

East Africa has become lucrative for oil firms after Kenya and Uganda's oil finds and discoveries of gas in Tanzania and Mozambique. Tullow Oil and Africa Oil, which control blocks in Kenya, have estimated discoveries in South Lokichar basin at 600 million barrels.-Reuters