Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta flew to France last
week for a state visit “that could also give Kenya an opportunity to bring up
the issue of the oil pipeline from Uganda,” Kenyan media reported. According to
the reports, Kenyatta and his French hosts are scheduled to discuss
counter-terrorism and radicalization issues, amongst other development and
cooperation-related matters. However, considering the fact that Uganda had
earlier indicated interest in passing the pipeline through Kenya before its
recent U-turn by choosing a Tanzanian route, Kenyatta and his delegation are
expected to engage in a lobbying mission in a bid to keep the project. French
oil company Total is amongst three firms involved in the project. Others are
Britain’s Tullow Oil and China’s CNOOC. The three players have not mutually
agreed on the route, leaving leeway for lobbying both in East Africa and
abroad.
Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta
The lucrative project has seen two East African Community member
countries—Tanzania and Kenya—battle it out in recent weeks to win over Ugandan
authorities. Tanzania is selling the operational Tanga port as the best route
to pump Ugandan crude oil which is expected to flow to international markets in
2018 while Kenya is campaigning for its yet-to-be-built Lamu port. The Tanga
route remains the most cost effective, according to Total E & P Uganda
general manager Adewate Fayeni. Fayeni
said last week that as far as the company is concerned all the options have
been evaluated carefully and the least cost remains the Tanga route. "As a
company, our position remains that we are going through to Tanga route, I
understand there are issues being discussed but our position remains the
same," Fayemi told an East African Oil and Gas conference in Dar es
Salaam. Tanzania has maintained that the agreement entered recently with Uganda
for the construction of the pipeline was conclusive despite ongoing jostling by
Kenya for the project. According to the presidency’s acting director of
communications Gerson Msigwa, maneuvers by high-level officials in Kenya to try
to snatch the project from Tanzania will eventually prove futile. “The Tanzania
Petroleum Development Corporation and Ministry of Energy and Minerals are
already carrying out tangible activities in relation to this project,” Msigwa
said.
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