A big Ugandan oil project is progressing at last
But in a world moving away from oil, does it still make sense?
SOON MORE than 200,000 barrels of oil a day will flow through Fred Lubowa’s garden: past his tin-roofed house, under his banana trees, and beneath the spot which currently houses the family graves. But for now the only sign of the disruption to come is a line of wooden stakes in the undergrowth. It is three years since surveyors came to his village in Kyotera district, central Uganda, to mark the route for the longest heated pipeline in the world. It will carry oil 1,443 kilometres from the shores of Lake Albert to the Tanzanian coast. He has waited, in limbo.
This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Pipe dreams”
From the February 5th 2022 edition
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