Why Uganda picked UAE firm to refuel its oil refinery project

In picking a United Arab Emirates (UAE) firm as the lead developer and investor for its 60,000-barrels-per-day oil refinery, Uganda has yet again opted for an outlier with the financial muscle but no technical expertise or footprint in the development of downstream refining facilities for oil and gas.

On January 23, Energy Minister Ruth Nankabirwa announced that the government had picked Alpha MBM Investments Llc from the UAE, with which Kampala signed a Memorandum of Understanding on December 22, 2023, outlining co-operation and negotiation terms for the refinery.

Already set back several years, Kampala is keen on the quick take-off of the project that has since 2015 seen three investors — Russia’s RT Resources, South Korea’s SK Engineering, and the Albertine Graben Energy Consortium (Agec) — invited for the job but this did not go beyond the initial talks.

The first two pulled out of the talks to develop the $4.5 billion refinery, while the US firms led Agec group failed to deliver key project targets and financing, despite holding on to the project framework agreement for six years since 2018.

In a media briefing, Ms Nankabirwa also hinted that the refinery project lost time after the Yaatra Africa, Baker Hughes and Saipem SpA consortium failed to make headway, requiring that the new investor hit the ground running to catch up with the upstream projects whose development is now advanced.

“The new partner has to match the pace of development so far covered by Tilenga and Kingfisher,” she said, clarifying that negotiations of the key commercial agreements between the Uganda government and Alpha commenced on January 16, 2024, and are expected to be concluded within three months.

The timelines set an ambitious April 2024 target to negotiate and conclude key commercial agreements that will be assigned immediately to allow the investor to make the final investment decision (FID) to build the refinery.

The government and Alpha are currently negotiating the crude supply agreement, shareholder agreement, and implementation agreement, whose conclusion and signing in three months will see the partners move to FID, Energy Ministry Permanent Secretary Irene Batebe said.

“At the time of signature FID should be taken because some works should be starting then,” said Ms Batebe, adding that a portion of government equity, held through Uganda National Oil Company is already financed with more funds to be included in subsequent budgets to get the refinery off the ground.

The upstream Kingfisher and Tilenga oilfields — which will supply crude oil to the refinery — started drilling works last year in January and June respectively and are expected to produce the first barrels of oil in 2025.

Based in Dubai, Alpha MBM Group is the private investment office led by Sheikh Mohammed bin Maktoum bin Juma Al Maktoum, a member of the Dubai Royal Family, with portfolios in mining, aviation, consultancy, trading, technology, education, logistics, and agriculture, according to its website.

The website does not mention oil and gas, prompting government critic and opposition lawmaker Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda to question how the company that no expertise and portfolio in the sector has was selected to develop as complex a facility as an oil refinery.

Other government sources that preferred anonymity termed this decision “a throwback,” considering that Kampala already has a running MoU with Algerian state-owned firm Sonatrach Petroleum Corporation, which was expected to step in once the Agec contract expired on June 30, 2023.

Ms Nankabirwa did not mention the fate of the government’s MoU with Sonatrach or if the Algerian firm was among the bidders for the project, but said her ministry invited expressions of interest from several potential investors, which were evaluated and ended with UAE’s Alpha as the winner.

The Alpha group comes into the picture after Uganda ditched Yaatra, Baker Hughes, and Saipem on June 30, 2023, when the project framework agreement (PFA) they signed in 2018 and renewed three times, expired.

The Agec group completed the initial two-year PFA period and subsequent extensions with little to show in terms of project works and mobilisation of the required financing, apart from the project’s Front End Engineering Design studies.

After growing frustrated by Agec and previous Russian and Korean firms, President Museveni directed that the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development engage more reliable public developers.

The structure of the refinery’s shareholding is 60 percent taken up by the developer, while the remaining 40 percent is allocated to the government of Uganda, which has invited East African Community partner states to buy shares.

The refinery is sold as a regional infrastructure project that will address the region’s demand for petroleum products.