Uganda’s long-awaited first commercial oil production has slipped again, with operator TotalEnergies now targeting late September 2026 for first crude from the Lake Albert basin, pushed back from the July 2026 timeline the company and its partners had set as recently as April.

The project rests on two fields: Tilenga, operated by TotalEnergies, expected to produce up to 190,000 barrels per day at peak across six oil fields in the Buliisa and Nwoya districts, and Kingfisher, operated by China’s CNOOC, expected to add about 40,000 barrels per day. Both sit in the Lake Albert basin, a region that has never produced commercial oil.

Crude will be exported via the 1,443-kilometre East African Crude Oil Pipeline linking Hoima in Uganda to the port of Tanga in Tanzania. Construction is now more than 90% complete, according to Josephine Wapakhabulo Bateebe, director general of Uganda’s Petroleum Authority. TotalEnergies holds 62% of the pipeline, with the Uganda National Oil Company and Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation each holding 15% and CNOOC holding 8%.

The project remains under financial and legal strain. EACOP’s total cost has climbed to roughly $5.6 billion, a 55% increase over initial estimates, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a rise that could reduce the Ugandan state’s eventual revenue share under the project’s cost-recovery terms. Ugandan farmers filed a case with the UK High Court in early July over compensation linked to land acquired along the pipeline route, and several major international banks have declined to finance the project over environmental and social concerns. The government says it is not planning to flare gas produced alongside the oil, but instead intends to use it to help expand domestic electricity access, though no firm timeline for that has been set.

Source: energynews.pro