East African leaders agree on Uganda-Tanzania oil pipeline

East African Community (EAC) leaders on Saturday agreed that an oil pipeline be built from Uganda's oil wells to the east Africa coastline through Tanzania.

Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, Rwanda's Paul Kagame and Kenya's Uhuru Kenyatta agreed in a meeting here that the pipeline will link the oil wells in western Uganda to the Tanzanian port of Tanga.

The decision ends back and forth negotiations between Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania on which route the pipeline would take.

The leaders in their communique at the end of a two-day summit also agreed that Kenya will construct its pipeline from Lokichat to the Port of Lamu.

The leaders were meeting at the 13th Summit of the Northern Corridor Integration Projects, gatherings aimed at discussing ways of fast tracking the region's economic development.

The meeting was also attended by representatives and government officials from Tanzania, Burundi and South Sudan.

The communique also said Tanzania is going to invest in the shareholding of the Uganda oil refinery project.

Uganda plans to start commercial production of its so far discovered 6.5 billion barrels of oil.

It plans to refine some of the oil while the rest of the crude will be transported to the east African coast for export.

The country took a decision that EAC countries should be involved in the production process.

Source: XINHUA