East Africa’s oil pipeline consultant bid to be advertised by July

The Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan oil pipeline consultancy bid advertisement is expected   to be out in the next two to three weeks according to Kenya’s ministry of energy.

The pipeline that will stretch from the Hoima refinery in Uganda through Northern Kenya to the Kenyan coast will seek a single consultant as the East African states seek to ensure same quality and a single supervisor.

Uganda is expected to produce about 60,000 barrels a day once the Hoima refinery is fully functional half of which will be used internally and the rest exported through the pipeline.

South Sudan oil which will join the pipeline at Isiolo as per the earlier agreement signed in August 2012 was to transport between 700,000 barrels to 1 million.

The production has since however dropped significantly to just about 200,000 barrels following a civil war that has rocked the country since December 2013.

Initially Kenya and South Sudan were to construct a 2000 kilometer oil pipeline together at a cost of $3 billion with the works having set to begin in June 2013.

“The three states want to procure one supervisor for the entire pipeline to ensure uniformity,” Joseph Njoroge, the Energy and Petroleum Ministry’s principal secretary, told reporters.

The sourcing of a single consultant and transaction adviser was approved early last month by the five member states of the East African community and South Sudan.

In January Tullow and partners announced they had agreed with the government of Kenya to commence development studies for an oil pipeline with the development plans expected late next year.

The entire pipeline is expected to be 1380 kilometers in length and was one of the initial proposals for the project with the other being a pipeline through Nairobi to Mombasa with a length of 1300 kilometers and lastly another through Tanzania that would have been covering a total of 1950 kilometers.

The current option was preferred as it would result to shared burden as it would be a joint venture among the three countries.

The project expected to be sanctioned by 2016.