The meeting between Presidents Uhuru Kenyatta and Yoweri Museveni at State House, Nairobi, yesterday was a taut test of the two neighbours as they had to deal with a sensitive cooperation issue that can drive a wedge in their cordial relationship.
The meeting, with the key agenda being Uganda’s intention to ditch an oil pipeline project between it and Kenya and team up with Tanzania in a separate project, ended without a concrete deal. Kenya is keen to have Uganda stay in their earlier deal for the pipeline that is part of the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (Lapsset), but the neighbouring country has apparently been wooed into a deal with Tanzania that is supported by French oil multinational, Total SA.
Confusion has dogged the proposed pipeline project since last year when Total SA started high-level lobbying in Uganda and Tanzania in opposition to the original plan by Uhuru and Museveni to build the pipeline in the northern corridor from Uganda’s oil fields in Lake Albert basin to Lokichar in Kenya to Lamu port.
Uhuru and Museveni had signed the deal in August, last year. However, Total SA’s offer to finance a baseline survey and design for an alternative route for the Ugandan oil, by-passing Kenya through the Tanga Port in Tanzania, threw the project into confusion.
It is not clear why Museveni was keen on the Nairobi meeting with Uhuru on the project, yet early this month his country signed a memorandum of understanding with Tanzania on the Hoima-Tanga project. However, Uganda’s ambivalence has left Kenya and Tanzania guessing on the fate of the project even as Total SA stands its ground that its crude will only go through Tanga Port.
Total SA, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Tullow Oil—which holds 30 per cent stake each in Uganda oil—had been invited to State House meeting yesterday. Two weeks ago, this newspaper was privy to confidential information that Ministry of Energy had planned to launch an expression on interest for the design of the pipeline but the plans were withdrawn at the last minute with the expectation Uganda was coming aboard.
“There is no expression of interest so far,” said Kenya’s Energy Cabinet secretary Charles Keter last week in a news conference when pressed on the status of plans for the call for designs.
It is also curious that the yesterday meeting came barely two weeks after the Uhuru showed his backing for Museveni by being the first African leader to send a congratulatory message to him for winning Uganda’s presidential elections whose results have been bitterly contested.
Yesterday, a joint statement signed by Keter and his Ugandan counterpart Irene Muloni on the outcome of the meeting said further talks on the matter would be held in the next two weeks to hammer out outstanding issues.
“The two leaders heard technical presentations by Kenyan and Ugandan energy officials on options of constructing the pipeline from Hoima in Lake Albert (Uganda) through the Kenyan northern route through the oil fields in Lokichar (Kenya),” said the joint communiqué.
Energy officials from the two countries also made presentations on another proposed but less publicly discussed southern route, through Nakuru-Eldoret, with a loop to Lokichar, the statement said, adding that the viability of the Tanzanian Hoima-Tanga route had also been discussed.
People familiar with the ongoing high-level stakes game that Total SA has been playing on the pipeline say the company may be using the Tanzanian route to arm-twist Kenya into abandoning the northern route for the Hoima-Nakuru-Mombasa corridor.
Total SA has cited security as the main reason for its opposition to the Northern Kenya route. “Yes. It is true Total SA has opposed the Lapsset pipeline on very flimsy grounds. They say the pipeline would be vulnerable to al Shabaab attacks, but the two governments had plans to secure the pipeline and discussions were on-going on the project,” said petroleum PS Andrew Kamau, in a past interview with this newspaper.
Total SA has oil exploration blocks North of Lake Tanganyika that could benefit greatly if the pipeline is constructed along both Hoima-Tanga and Hoima-Nakuru-Mombasa routes.
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