Uganda's First Oil Drops This Year

Uganda is entering the final stretch toward its first oil, with government and industry leaders emphasising readiness, partnerships, and long-term value.

Officials say significant progress has been made on key projects, including Tilenga, Kingfisher, and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, all critical to unlocking production.

But beyond infrastructure, Gloria Sebikari, Public Relations Officer at the Petroluem Authority of Uganda, says the focus is now shifting to institutional readiness—ensuring the country has the skills, regulatory frameworks, and private sector capacity to manage oil production sustainably.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Uganda is in the final countdown to fast oil with major progress on key projects and growing focus on skills, jobs, and long-term value creation. From over 2,300 cities in 178 countries, we bring you the Good Morning Africa broadcast. Good morning, Africa. Welcome aboard your past on Everything Business in Africa. I'm Rither Dong. For more follow us on Twitter at the K Financial News, and you can find me at Rither Dong. Uganda is entering the final stretch towards its first oil with governments and industry leaders emphasizing readiness, partnerships, and long-term value. Officials say significant progress has been made on key projects, including Telenga, Kingfisher, Kingfisher, and the East African crude oil pipeline all critical to unlocking production. But beyond infrastructure, Gloria Sevikani, the public relations officer, the Britannum Authority of Uganda, says the focus is now shifting to institutional readiness and ensuring the country has the skills, regulatory frameworks, and private sector capacity to manage oil production sustainably.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

This year's theme, as Humphrey has said, is fulfilling Uganda's first oil promise, the final countdown. It's very timely and it speaks to the current realities for Uganda's oil and gas journey. Every milestone in this journey has required preparation, intense preparation. It has required partnership, as you can see, the different players in the room, and an unwavering commitment not to only reach fast oil, but to do it in the right way. And so the Petroleum Authority of Uganda is very glad once again to partner with the Uganda Chamber of Energy and Minerals, especially at a time when the country is transitioning from years and years of preparation into a phase of petroleum production and operation, and hence long-term value creation. I think that is what is most important for us as a country. What value has the petroleum sector brought to the country? What value is it bringing, and what value will it bring in the future? As mentioned, significant progress has been registered in the upstream developments at the Tilenga and Kingfisher projects, and these continue to advance steadily, without a doubt. This is supported by impressive drilling performance, as Humphrey highlighted, construction of the required facilities, and even completion of certain infrastructure for us to enable the country to reach fast oil. On the other hand, the East African crude oil pipeline, which is a strategic enabler for production. You know, many times we went through a couple of years of stop ECOP, support ECOP, and those that said stop ECOP didn't know that without ECOP there is no oil and gas for Uganda because it is an integrated project. But I'm glad to say, as a strategic enabler for oil production, ECOP is also well advanced. And also the developments in the Kamalega Industrial Park in Hoima District are laying the foundation for the development of the refinery alongside huge industrial development in petrochemicals, logistics, agriculture, and the like. So reaching fast oil is not only about infrastructure readiness, it is also about ensuring that Uganda is institutionally ready, meaning that as the petroleum authority of Uganda as a regulator, we must be ready for the next phase. We must be technically and economically prepared to manage petroleum production responsibly and sustainably. And that's why the partnerships must continue even after we hit fast oil. So this requires continuous enhancement in institutional readiness, starting from the regulatory frameworks to the skills required and even to the capabilities, especially of the private sector, to take on this phase but also operate beyond our borders. For us at the Petroleum Authority of Uganda, our work goes beyond ensuring we produce the resources. Our work goes into ensuring that even our national content strategy continues to bear results beyond this development phase, which has seen$2.3 billion in contracted to Ugandan companies, 21,000 direct jobs and the indirect and induced are much more, massive technology transfer in hundreds of millions of dollars, and capabilities of young people, training institutions, and SMEs improve. I think the oil and gas sector has been unlocked the concept of national content across the board for the country. So in the operational phase, we will further build on these results. I don't mean to preempt the discussions at the conference, but we will ensure that in the operational phase we consolidate the foundation that has been laid. We want to see domiciliation of global suppliers through promotion of joint ventures, transfer of skills and competences to other sectors of the economy. This is very important if we are talking about long-term value creation. We have farms, the garden farms that have done well in high-level specialist engineering, logistics, transporting the biggest equipment that we've seen in the region. So we want to see these competences go across to other sectors of the economy, and this is already happening. We want to continue skills development with a focus on operations and maintenance. We are working with industry players and training institutions to continue prioritizing skills development, and a number of young Ugandans are training both here in Uganda, for example at Uganda Petroleum Institute at Shibumba and different global operations of the different operators to acquire the necessary practical skills for the operations phase. So we are already training for the upcoming phase. We want to see enhanced access to finance and also strengthening, further strengthening the national content legal and regulatory framework. As the authority, we'll also continue monitoring and reporting to you for accountability so that as a country we are both part and parcel of the development of the sector. So this press conference today is very important as we build momentum towards the 11th annual oil and gas convention that is scheduled for 28th and 29th April. That's next week. We hope that it will provide a national platform to take stock of our readiness for fast oil across the board, not just national content, but look at readiness in terms of do we understand our resources, readiness in terms of how we are engaging with our stakeholders, readiness in terms of the fiscal responsibilities. Are we ready for the huge revenue inflows that come in? And in conclusion, as Uganda enters the production era, I think our success will not only be judged by production of the first borough, but by the lasting value that we create together and fulfilling the promises that as government we've made to the country, as the private sector has made to the country. But also all these are set out in our national oil and gas policy of 2008 and more recently the National Petroleum Policy of 2025. So government and indeed the Petroleum Authority of Uganda values the support of all the partners in meeting these aspirations of creating lasting value and also thanks the media for a critical role in informing the public, shaping understanding and supporting transparency and accountability. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you next week at Speaker's Old Community.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Thank you very much. Um ladies and gentlemen, we're now going to hear from the Uganda National Oil Company. Uh, and uh then thereafter we will hear from um other private sector players as well as members of the chamber uh that I'll be producing.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

And a quick look at the markets. Africa's insurance sector is increasing momentum due to greater demand from the growing middle class. This is according to a new report. The market is expected to top 166 billion US dollars by 2034, up from 98.5 billion US dollars in 2025. Global this is according to global market research firm IMAC Group. Greater financial inclusion has facilitated access to insurance products. Telcom operators have increasingly integrated with insurance companies, meaning that more than 18 million people have now enrolled in insurance programs via mobile payment systems. Microinsurance offerings, which focus on sub-Saharan Africa's informal sector, around 80% of all workers have also expanded across the continent. Though a majority of consumers are concentrated in South Africa, microinsurance models cover more than 3.5 million people in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. A trade group of about a dozen domestic airlines says to hold off the shutdown after reaching a concessionary, but a conditional decision during an emergency meeting with the Nigerian aviation minister. Airlines are among the business highest hit by the impact of the Iran war, with some of the continent's largest carriers suffering multimillion dollar losses. Nigeria, Africa's largest or producer, depends on one major private refiner for local supplies, Aliko Dangote, the billionaire industrialist who operates the refinery. They announced a 34,000 square foot manufacturing facility that will serve as their primary regional base for drone and counter-dron systems reaching an earning capacity of 50,000 units by 2028 and creating over 120 engineering jobs. It follows their 34 million US dollar raise and comms as demand for integrated defense systems across the hill and sub-Saharan Africa accelerates. Thank you for always waking up with us. Good morning after quite after the K Financial. If you have suggestions or want to check out more stories, visit the website at the K Financial.com. Don't forget to subscribe. You can find us on all social media platforms at the K Financial, and you can find it after