Uganda will open a new round of licensing for oil exploration companies to operate in its oil-rich Lake Albertine rift basin later this year as it seeks to accelerate the development of its oil sector, Uganda’s prime minister said Wednesday.
Apollo Nsibambi told the East African Petroleum Conference in Kampala the government intends to license the remaining five blocks in the Lake Albertine Rift basin to new players in a bid to exploit the potential of the rift basin.
“Only five blocks have been licensed and to date, 2.5 billion barrels of a oil have been discovered,” he said.
The upcoming exploration will be Uganda’s first since it introduced a licensing ban on new players in the oil sector in 2007 to put in place a regulatory framework for the sector following the confirmation of commercial oil reserves.
Uganda’s permanent secretary at the ministry of energy and minerals development Fred Kalisa Kabagambe said separately that the new licensing will be conducted on a basis of competitive bidding unlike in the past where it was offered on a “first come first served basis”.
“Apart from the existing five blocks, new players will also be licensed relinquished acreage from the existing licenses,” he said adding that the government will re-license some of the areas in the existing licenses, where exploration has not yet been carried out.
The government is also preparing two separate pieces of legislation this year, one for the management of the resources and another to regulate the management of oil revenues, Kabagambe added.
Nsibambi said that government is also looking at entering “genuine” and “transparent” partnerships with international companies into all segments of the oil industry.
“We want genuine partnerships, and if taxes accrue, private companies must pay,” he said.
