(Reuters) - Kenya,
Uganda and Rwanda have invited bids for a single consultant to oversee a
feasibility study and initial design for the construction of a 1,300-kilometre (808-mile) oil
pipeline to transport crude to the Kenyan coast.
Uganda and Kenya have discovered
commercial quantities of oil and plan to start production in the next three
years or so.
Kenya's Ministry of Energy and
Petroleum said in addition to the pipeline, the consultant would be required to
oversee the construction of a fibre optic cable from Hoima in Uganda
through the Lokichar basin in northwest Kenya to Lamu, and tank terminals in
Hoima, Lokichar and Lamu.
It said in an advertisement
published in Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper that will also involve the
construction of a 9-km pipeline from the Lamu tank terminal to an offshore
mooring buoys.
"The pipeline is to be
developed as a single project but split into two lots namely Hoima to the
Uganda/Kenya border and from the border to Lamu," the ministry said,
adding that interested companies and consortia had until July 25 to submit
proposals.
The ministry's principal secretary,
Joseph Njoroge, said this month the aim of having a single consultant for the
whole project was to ensure consistency in the quality of the whole pipeline.
East Africa has become potentially
lucrative for international oil firms after Kenya and Uganda's commercial oil
finds and discoveries of gas off the coast of Tanzania and Mozambique.
Tullow Oil and Africa Oil, which
control blocks in Kenya, have estimated discoveries in the South Lokichar basin
at 600 million barrels, a level experts say is enough to make a pipeline viable
even without Uganda.
The two companies said on Tuesday
they had found additional oil and gas reserves at their northwest Kenya blocks.
Uganda estimates it has oil reserves
of 3.5 billion barrels.
The plan for a single consultant and
transaction adviser was approved by the governments of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda,
South Sudan, Tanzania and Burundi in early May. Those countries make up the
East African Community, although South Sudan is still only an applicant to join
the group.
Kenya's plans for oil production
have moved fast since Tullow and Africa Oil's first discoveries were announced
in March 2012.
In contrast, neighbouring Uganda
struck oil in the Albertine rift basin in 2006 but commercial production has
been delayed by wrangling with oil firms over Uganda's plans for a refinery and
other factors and is not expected until 2016 at the earliest. (Editing byGeorge
Obulutsa and Jason
Neely)
Culled from http://www.reuters.com/
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