Uganda’s government is in talks with an investment business managed by a member of Dubai’s royal family to build a $4 billion (£3.1 billion) oil refinery.
Uganda picked Alpha MBM Investments LLC of the United Arab Emirates over five other bidders for the project, Energy and Mineral Development Minister Ruth Nankabirwa told BBC Newsday.
The two parties are expected to achieve an agreement within three months.
“We hope they are not going to spend a lot of time looking for money because they indicated that it’ll be possible to get the money and the technology that we need that will be able to help us get our crude oil refined, taking care of the environmental requirements,” Ms Nankabirwa said.
The minister told Newsday that measures will be put in place to mitigate the project’s emissions and environmental impact.
The government says the refinery would help Uganda process some of its crude oil profitably as part of a $20 billion investment in the industry.
The government plans to begin commercial production of crude oil in 2025.
“Already, the investments that have been put in place so far have contributed a great deal to the economy of the country – about $8.6bn – and we are expecting to get more than that in this period, between $20bn-$25bn,” Ms Nankabirwa told Newsday.
Uganda is currently in the initial phases of creating a new oil project. This project involves constructing a pipeline that spans 1,443km (896 miles) to transport crude oil from Western Uganda to the Tanga port in Tanzania for export.
