The East African Crude Oil Pipeline officials have launched a Liaison office in Masaka city which is intended to address the issues of the people who are being affected by the oil pipeline within the districts of greater Masaka.
The office located at Brovad Apartments a few meters from Hotel Brovad Masaka will benefit people of Lwengo, Gomba, Ssembabule, Rakai and Kyotera.
According to the Deputy Managing Director of EACOP Uganda, John Bosco Habumugisha, the office is intended to enhance its presence in the project areas in the different hub locations along the pipeline.
Habumugisha refuted allegations of EACOP’s involvement in polluting the environment and also killing the elephants.
He said the project is intended to fight poverty amongst Ugandans.
Ms Laura Sseezi, Branda and Communication strategist from Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) said that the availability of the office will create more opportunities for the people around the Masaka sub region.
Michael Kakuru, the focal person of EACOP in Sembabule district said that there has been a communication gap between the affected group and the Project implementers including delay in compensation.
Ms Hafiswa Nabakooza, the Assistant Chief Administrative Officer for Lwengo District said that most of the promises made by the implementers were fulfilled despite the challenges.
Guillaume Lesage, commercial Director EACOP said that they are committed to seeing everyone benefit in the project.
The East African Crude Oil Pipeline is a 1,443 Km crude oil export infrastructure that will transport Uganda’s crude oil from Kabaale Hoima in Uganda to Chongoleani peninsula near Tanga in Tanzania for export to the international market.
It will have a peak capacity of 246,000 bbls/day. The first 296 km of EACOP are in Uganda and the remaining 1147 km are in Tanzania.
EACOP is being constructed in parallel with two upstream development projects which are not part of EACOP development and investment, known as Tilenga and Kingfisher respectively.
Each development will consist of a Central Processing Facility (CPF) to separate and treat the oil, water and gas produced by the wells.
Kingfisher will have 4 well pads and a CPF with a peak daily capacity of 42000 bbl/d.
Tilenga has 31 wellpads and a 204000 bbl/d CPF Kingfisher was recently launched by the President.
Tilenga and Kingfisher CPFs will be connected by feeder lines to the starting point of EACOP at Kabaale. Here the oil will be metered and then commingled into a single stream. The Ugandan Refinery project has a right of first call to 60,000 bbl/d, with the remainder of the oil being exported via EACOP.
