Uganda says UK, Swiss firms building airport for oil basin
KAMPALA (Bloomberg) -- Uganda said the UK’s Colas Ltd. and SBI International Holdings AG of Switzerland are jointly developing an airport in the oil-rich Albertine Graben.
The project has already commenced ahead of the planned start of oil production in 2020, Emma Mugizi, senior corporate affairs manager at the Petroleum Authority of Uganda, told a conference on Wednesday in the capital, Kampala.
Uganda’s government said in September that it would borrow $360 million from UK Export Finance for the airport, with the project’s first phase due for completion in third-quarter 2019. The airport will be the nation’s second after Entebbe, outside Kampala.
The East African nation also plans to spend $500 million building 580 km (360 mi) of new roads in the oil region, Mugizi said. France’s Total SA, Cnooc Ltd. of China and London-based Tullow Oil Plc are jointly developing Uganda’s crude finds with the potential for as much as 1.7 Bbbl of recoverable oil.