This archive report was first published on 15 June 2021.
On June 14, 2021, French oil company Total announced that it had awarded a $1.9 billion deal for the construction of its Lake Albert oil production Tilenga project in Uganda to a consortium led by British and Chinese firms.
The consortium includes CB&I UK Limited, a McDermott subsidiary company, and Chinese firm Sinopec International Petroleum Corporation, which won the contract for the Engineering, Procurement, Supply, Construction and Commissioning (EPSCC) of the central processing facility, flowlines and other associated surface facilities.
Other firms in the deal are Schlumberger Oilfield Eastern Limited, Vallourec Oil and Gas France, and ZPEB Uganda Co. Limited, which were awarded contracts for well engineering packages, well procurement packages, and oil rig packages, respectively.
According to Total, the companies have made significant commitments to promoting national content through employing Ugandans, using local goods and services, and technology transfer.
The Tilenga project has a production capacity of 190,000 barrels of oil per day and includes six fields to be developed, 426 wells to be drilled from 31 well pads, and one central processing facility located in Buliisa, outside the Murchison Falls National Park.
However, the project's location in a protected conservation area remains a concern for environmental activists, who argue that the project's footprint will occupy less than 0.05 percent of the park's surface area.
