Ready for action: in Uganda
Uganda set to lift licensing freeze
Uganda expects to end a freeze on oil exploration licences by the end of this year, Energy Minister Simon D'Ujanga said in an interview today.
Investor interest has been heating up for Uganda's oil since explorers Tullow Oil and Heritage Oil discovered crude in the Albertine basin, which spans the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"We have licensed out about half the area, and there has been exploration in some parts of this ... We can easily say, a rough estimate, 70 percent of the area has not yet been explored," D'Ujanga told Reuters in an interview.
"Towards the end of this year, we could lift the freeze."
Kampala froze licences in August 2007 to create regulatory policies among other issues and had expected the policy to be passed last year. Blocks 3B, 3C, 3D and 4A are open.
Tullow and Heritage hold 50% equity each in blocks 1 and 3A while Tullow owns Block 2 outright. Tower Resources and Dominion Uganda, a subsidiary of Dominion Petroleum, hold blocks 5 and 4B, respectively.
"We might not see the first drop of oil until 2010 or 2011," D'Ujanga said, adding it would be closer to 2011.
"We expect to have in excess of 1 billion barrels, because exploration is still ongoing."
Since mid-2007, tensions over Lake Albert between Uganda and DR Congo have erupted into occasional bouts of violence, but D'Ujanga said they had made substantial progress since then.