Afreximbank approves $200 million for Uganda crude pipeline as NGOs denounce the project

Afreximbank has approved $200 million toward financing of a contested oil pipeline to export Uganda’s crude, while a report released by two environmental NGOs has warned of potentially “unacceptable” damage caused by a controversial project involving French oil giant TotalEnergies and China’s National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).
The Nigeria-based bank was also willing to finance construction of a refinery in the East African country, Uganda’s presidency has said. The two companies signed a $10-billion agreement earlier this year to develop Ugandan oilfields and ship crude through a 1,445-km pipeline to Tanzania’s Indian Ocean port of Tanga. But the $3.5 billion pipeline has drawn increasing criticism from environmentalists and European Union lawmakers. France’s TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA), the lead developer of the pipeline, is facing mounting pressure to drop the project or re-route it because of protests over potential harm to the environment and livelihoods of local communities.
„…the promoters of the project boast that it will be the longest heated pipeline in the world. Why is it heated? It will be heated to 50 degrees because the oil in Uganda is too viscous and so they need to heat it to liquefy it and make it go through the pipeline easily. So it’s a climate aberration,“ says Juliette Renaud, an environmental activist with Friends of the Earth France. The NGOs also accuse TotalEnergies and CNOOC of not putting in place adequate measures to safeguard communities and the environment. Echoing campaigns by local and international environmentalists, the European Parliament already passed a resolution last month saying that more than 100,000 people were at risk of being displaced by the pipeline and called for them to be adequately compensated. Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni reacted angrily to the resolution, calling the EU lawmakers insufferable.