Panorama: Oil pipeline financing blues push first oil to 2026&27
Uganda’s oil project has been in fast-track mode since April 2021 when the government and the joint venture partners—French TotalEnergies EP and China’s Cnooc—signed off key agreements for the proposed East African Crude Oil Pipeline. Later in February 2022, the two sides announced the long-awaited Final Investment Decision to work towards kick-starting commercial oil production in the last quarter of 2025. While the momentum hasn’t changed, the mood is far from festive amid a series of hiccups that have led to revising the production schedule to quarter 4 of 2026 but could as well inch into early 2027.
