The race for an investor into the refinery moved into a new critical phaze recently following the selection of two major world players who must now battle it out for Uganda’s single biggest and perhaps most lucrative deal.
According to the Ministry of Energy website, oil fields as well as meet with the upstream oil companies to have a dialogue on crude supply arrangements for the refinery.
The Energy Ministry Permanent Secretary Kabagambe Kaliisa says the government will now commence negotiations with the two bidders and thereafter call for the Best and Final Offers.
The government wants the winner of the negotiations to invest 60% of a projected US$ 2.5 billion refinery in Hoima that can process 60,000 barrels per day by 2017.
SK group, a consortium from South Korea that brings together SK Energy and Hyundai, owns the world’s second largest refinery in the World of 1.12 million barrels per day.
On the other hand, RT Global resources and its consortium members have developed key refining projects in Russia.
Kaliisa says that the best and final offers are expected to come by the end of 2014.
The refinery project however faces a major obstacle because the production companies want to export the crude via a pipeline going through Kenya but which is yet to be built.
