Two pipelines test economics of East Africa’s oil developments

A decade after its first big oil find, East Africa’s emergence as a crude exporter has been hindered by security and cost concerns that left the region building two pipelines instead of one. Uganda and Kenya are developing two new basins and originally agreed to build one line to connect the landlocked discoveries to the coast. That changed last year, when Uganda chose a more southerly 1 400-km route through Tanzania, citing lower transit prices. Kenya will go it alone with an 865-km line to a port on the Indian Ocean.