Siemens VP touts company expertise for Uganda pipeline

September 27, 2017 in Business, Companies, Energy, Hydrocarbons, Infrastructure, Investment by Editor

September 27— German technology and engineering global giant, Siemens, has offered its expertise in construction of the proposed heated pipeline that will ferry crude from western Uganda to the Tanzanian port of Tanga. Uganda has reserves of 6.5 billion barrels of crude oil and just under two billion of this is recoverable.

In a keynote speech to the Uganda International Oil and Gas Summit, Patrice Laporte, Siemens Vice President for the North American Oil and Gas Division said,  “As more and more technology per barrel is required, oil and gas projects are becoming increasingly complex and the need for an integrated solution is important.”

He said, “The anticipated positive economic impact in Uganda from the oil and gas sector is indeed promising, but the full effect of this will only benefit the country and its citizens through judicious planning and implementation of the proposed pipeline.”

Last month, the Tanzanian and Ugandan governments commissioned the construction of the $3.5 billion East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project. France-based Total, is the leading private sector player for the nearly 1450 kilometre pipeline while Standard Bank Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking are trying to raise $3 billion from international money markets to help pay for the venture.

Laporte told participants, “With an estimated 6.5 billion barrels of oil and close to 500 billion cubic feet of gas, Uganda is a promising site for exploration. Siemens has a proven track record of delivering fit-for-purpose technical solutions on a large scale in remote locations. This expertise and knowledge can play a decisive role in ensuring the performance and on-time delivery of a key infrastructure project of this magnitude”.

Siemens is considered one of the technology leaders in the industry because of its full spectrum solutions, products and services.  “For many years Siemens have been supplying industrial automation, power generation and power distribution strengths and experience to the oil and gas industry,” Laporte said.

He said, “What makes this special is that our expertise and technology is not only of benefit at the inception of a project, but along the full value chain and throughout the entire life-cycle of an investment. Our innovative technical solutions ensure the sustainability of projects with a key focus on reliability, performance and economic efficiency.”

Uganda is a new entrant into the oil and gas market. The proposed oil pipeline will be the world’s longest electrically heated crude oil pipeline. It is estimated to be one of the most expensive projects to develop upstream, midstream and downstream infrastructure and the country is looking to capitalize on lessons learned in other developing oil and gas markets, as well as from established producers.

Siemens is already working with Uganda on a number of fronts related to the country’s immediate and long-term energy and infrastructure ambitions as well as actively investigating the best option to establish a local presence based on business sustainability.