Kenya will try to convince Ugandan oil producers one more time to consider routing a pipeline through the country as opposed to Tanzania.
On Monday, President Uhuru Kenyatta will host his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni in Nairobi, and officials from oil companies at the centre of the pipeline debate have been invited to the meeting.
On Sunday, State House confirmed the two leaders will discuss the construction of the Uganda-Kenya pipeline, whose plan has been thrown off course after Tanzania entered the fray.
The meeting appears to be a response to Tanzania’s announcement last week that the pipeline from Uganda to Tanga, which is supported by oil extraction in Uganda, will be constructed from August.
“Uganda’s oil producers — Irish company Tullow Oil, French company Total and China’s CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Company) — have also been invited to the meeting, which will be held at State House, Nairobi,” said State House spokesman Manoah Esipisu.
“In the construction of the pipeline, Kenya favours the ‘northern route’, through Lokichar, because, as part of the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport project, it would transform infrastructure and the way of life of the people in the towns and counties across its path,” he added.
The pipeline’s proposed route was agreed on in August last year, when President Kenyatta visited Kampala.
Once complete, it would move oil from Hoima in western Uganda to Lamu, through Lokichar in Turkana County, where Kenya has also discovered oil.
At the time, the two countries issued a joint statement saying the construction of the pipeline would be speeded up to tap into imminent oil revenues.
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