Uganda will offer a new oil exploration licensing round next financial year, its minister for energy and mineral development said on Tuesday.
The East African country, which expects to start commercial crude production later this year, is keen to expand its resource base through potential new discoveries.
Ruth Nankabirwa, the minister, told a petroleum conference that Uganda would offer its third petroleum exploration licensing round in the financial year that starts in July.
“This will offer new exploration blocks in the Albertine Graben and frontier basins,” she said.
Uganda’s last licensing round, in which five blocks were on offer, was launched in 2019 and concluded in 2023.
The country’s existing reserves, estimated at about 6.5 billion barrels, are all in the Albertine Graben, which straddles Uganda’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. The energy ministry says only 40% of that region has been explored so far.
The government is also doing preliminary exploration surveys in two new basins, Moroto-Kadam and Kyoga, located in the country’s north and northeast, respectively.
Uganda’s existing oil fields are co-owned and operated by France’s TotalEnergies and China’s CNOOC alongside Uganda’s state-owned petroleum firm, UNOC.
