It has emerged that Kenya will construct its own pipeline to transport crude oil from the Lake Turkana Basin to Lamu for export, one of Kenya’s leading newspaper Daily Nation reports.
Top government sources on Thursday revealed Kenya was convinced its efforts to persuade Uganda that the Hoima-Lokichar-Lamu route was the most cost effective option for the regional pipeline would not succeed.
Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to deliver Kenya’s position to Presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Tanzania’s Joseph Magufuli of Tanzania in Kampala.
“Kenya will tell the meeting (on the regional crude pipeline that it is willing to go the Lokichar-Lamu route which it sees as the cheapest of the three options. It will act in self-interest,” said a government source.
Kenya and Uganda delegations were locked up in make or break talks in Kampala over the route even as reports last week indicated that Uganda had opted to go for the Tanzania route.
This week, The Observer newspaper quoted Ugandan technocrats saying that Kampala had opted for the Hoima-Tanga route fearing that the Lamu Port could only start operations in 2022.
“The Kabaale-Tanga route is the only option to secure first oil export by mid 2020, with pipeline availability of 99 per cent. Uganda firmly concludes that Kabaale-Tanga route is the least costly route,” the paper said.
Talks between Kenya and Uganda on the pipeline route have taken over a month with President Kenyatta and President Museveni meeting in Nairobi last month, where they sanctioned a team to prepare a report for adoption on Saturday.
