Uganda government has agreed with oil explorers in western Uganda on a basic framework for commercial exploitation of oil Uganda discovered in the Lake Albert region.

Signing oil aggreement will come in the first half of this year. The Government of Uganda has been negotiating with UK-based oil explorer Tullow, France’s Total and China’s CNOOC on the most appropriate way of exploiting the 3.5 billion barrels in the Albertine region.

Uganda Government, Tullow, CNOOC and Total agreed on elements of a commercial framework memorandum of understanding that consists of a value chain in which the upstream production feeds into an optimally-sized refinery, a crude export pipeline and a crude to power plant for electricity generation.

Ends