TotalEnergies says Uganda key to its global plan

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | TotalEnergies SE has highlighted Uganda’s Tilenga project in the Albertine among its key assets for growth globally. The company already commenced drilling in Bulisa and Nwoya districts.

TotalEnergies will concentrate efforts on developing its portfolio of high-return oil projects in Brazil, Gulf of Mexico, Iraq and Uganda, according to its annual report released on Tuesday. Other areas of new exploration are in Suriname and Namibia as TotalEnergies presents scenarios for the evolution of energy demand and the global energy system.

TotalEnergies also has a major stake in the East African Crude Oil Project (EACOP) alongside CNOOC Uganda, Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC), and the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC).

TotalEnergies has faced global pressure not to continue with the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and the drilling of oil in the Murchison Falls National Park among others.

But TotalEnergies CEO PatrickJean Pouyanne on Tuesday indicated that the project in Uganda alongside those in Iraq and Brazil is among the flagship projects under development with production expected at the end of 2025.

While the company has already made substantial investments in renewable energy resources, Pouyanné indicated that oil and gas remained part of DNA.

“We will continue to grow and will continue to invest,” he said. “We refocused our portfolio on some fundamentals of the characteristics. Which is low cost in order to be resilient to cycles, in order to deliver the value and also low emissions,” Pouyanne said.

The company according to Pouyanne is to invest about four billion dollars per year in oil and gas.

“We have a rich portfolio of projects for the next five years that we intend to follow. Which will offer the company a growing oil and gas production of 2-3%.

The French Energy giant expects to reap about three billion dollars from oil and gas production between 2023 and 2028

He said success in oil and gas explorations has mainly contributed to the company’s success.

“I must pay tribute to our exploration teams. They have made some selective choices and three of them have been  very successful”

In a related development, Nicolas Terraz TotalEnergies President for exploration further hinted about the profitability of oil at the time when Uganda is expected to begin production.  It is estimated that even at $50 per barrel.

He reported that the development phase of the Lake Albert Development Project is proceeding well.

“Drilling is ongoing, facilities construction. It’s a large project with a material stake at 57% interest, bringing production of 130KBD by the end of 2025,” he said.

He said TotalEnergies analysis of the 2000-2021 period shows that the energy transition has started but is not progressing fast enough.

“Over this period, better use of energy has led to decoupling energy demand growth from GDP growth; however, the share of fossil fuels in energy is still around 80%, as growth in energy demand is linked to growth in the world’s population, and investment in low-carbon energies is insufficient to meet this demand.”