Uganda’s Energy Minister, Irene Muloni (photo), has announced that Total SA agreed to take a 10% interest in the country’s planned refinery, as it hunt for other investors for the $4 billion plant.

The country’s negotiations with a group of investors led by RT GlobalResources LLC, on the construction of the refinery failed earlier this year, while planned discussions with a group headed by SK Engineering & Construction Co. have not yielded any gain.

This had forced the government to attract other potential investors and pushed forward the completion of the Phase 1 of the project to 2020 from 2018.

“The process with RT Global ended because they brought new impossible conditions which were unfavorable to our government and now we are engaging other companies that are interested in the refinery. Even SK, by the time we got back to them they said their consortium could not continue with the project so it’s now other parties,” Muloni said.

Crude oil is to be supplied to the planned 60,000-bpd refinery from oil fields discovered in 2006 and estimated by the state to hold 6.5 billion barrels of crude resources. The fields are being developed by Total in a joint venture with Tullow Oil Plc and China’s CNOOC Ltd.

Uganda is preserving 60% of the facility for private investors, while the remaining 40% was reserved for governments of the six-nation East African Community, an economic bloc that brings together Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi and South Sudan.

Kenya has recoverable resources estimated at 750 million barrels and Tanzania has companies exploring for oil around the western Lake Tanganyika region.

Muloni added that Tanzania agreed to take the 8% stake it was presented, while Kenya plans to take 2.5% rather than the 8% shareholding offered to it.

“Whatever will remain untaken, the government of Uganda will take,” she said.

Uganda postponed negotiations with RT Global in June, after declaring in May that it had reached an agreement-in-principle with the company for the construction of the refinery. The talks were terminated due to the extra demands made by the consortium led by RT Global. The group was again invited earlier this month to renew talks.

“There are many interested parties who have shown interest and we think some of them are very serious. An investment of $4 billion is not small so it needs serious people. And there are a good number of them who have come on board who are serious,” she explained.

The Ugandan government estimates that it will earn $43 billion worth of revenue from oil over a period of twenty-five years following the commencement of production, which is expected in 2020, Bloomberg reports.

Anita Fatunji