Ugandan oil on line next year --2011

CAPE TOWN, Sept 29 (Reuters) - British oil exploration company Tullow Oil expects to produce first commercial gas and oil from the Ugandan basin by the end of next year, its principal geoscientist said on Wednesday.

Paul Burden said first commercial gas production from the Nzizi field in Block 2 was expected by the end of 2011 and first commercial oil production from the Kasamene field in Block 2 would also happen around the same time.

It would take four years to produce refined products, he added.

"Our first expectation for refined products coming out of Uganda would be about 4 years down the line... The (200,000 barrels-per-day) export pipeline will be somewhere down the line, maybe by 2015," he told an Africa energy conference.

BRITISH oil company Tullow says it is expecting the first commercial oil and gas production from the Nzizi oil field in Uganda in about the last quarter of next year.

“This event and other developments in the Lake Albert Rift Basin will change the economy of Uganda profoundly”, said Paul Burden, Tullow’s principal geoscientist.

Speaking at Africa Energy Week, which is taking place in Cape Town, Burden said commercial oil and gas production from a second field in the oil-rich basin, which is shared by Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, would start at about the same time.

These and other developments are the direct result of a recent partnership between Tullow, its French counterpart Total, and the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation.

The three companies also plan to build a 50MW power plant to electrify the Hoima region, in the western part of the country, bordering Lake Albert.

“In addition, in 2014/15 we foresee the very first sales of locally produced oil products from Uganda. Currently there is no processing infrastructure in this country such as refineries and product-processing plants,” Burden said. “This will change.”

Tullow and its partners also have plans to build an export pipeline (200000 barrels a day), which should be finalised by 2015. – I-Net Bridge