Reference - Joe Wacha

How big do the companies want to build the oil refinery? How big does the government want the oil refinery to be? Answer the question and provide a reference.

What Government Wants
The Uganda government has indicated that it wants to locally refine all the oil it has discovered within its borders. This it says is sue to the available local and regional demand backed by the increasing consumption levels.

The government's Petroleum Exploration and Production Department says that the Great Lakes Region with a population of over 150million people consumes up to 150,000 bopd and this consumption has been increasing at a rate of 5% per annum.

Government officials say they plan to build a refinery with the capacity to produce 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) but with an initial capacity of 20,000 bpd to be upgraded to a 60,000 capacity before eventually hitting the 120,000 bpd capacity.

Uganda Junior Energy and Minerals Minister Peter Lokeris has said he would rather see initial production delayed by several years than have an unsustainable development plan implemented.

What Oil Companies Want
While Tullow, Total and CNOOC want to sell crude on the open market--they are mulling $5 billion of investment in pipelines to the East African coast--Uganda insists that most of it is refined locally into fuel products, initially for domestic consumption and then for regional export. While the three had initially agreed to help fund a small 20,000 barrel-a-day refinery at an estimated cost of around $1.5 billion, Uganda now wants them to build a larger facility, capable of producing around 150,000 barrels a day of refined fuel products.