By Dipo Olowookere
One of the leading firms in the world, Siemens, has said the Ugandan oil and gas industry has the tendency to boost its economy in the nearest future.
Recently, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated that the oil reserves in Uganda may account for around 4 percent of the country’s economy annually in the next few years if managed well and these sentiments were echoed by speakers and delegates attending the Uganda International Oil & Gas Summit in Kampala Uganda.
Addressing government officials and delegates, Patrice Laporte, Vice President of Siemens North American Oil & Gas Division, presented a keynote titled ‘Digitalization in the Oil and Gas Sector.’
“As more and more technology per barrel is required, oil and gas projects are becoming increasingly complex and the need for an integrated solution is important,” said Laporte. “The anticipated positive economic impact in Uganda from the oil and gas sector is indeed promising but the full effect of this will only benefit the country and its citizens through judicious planning and implementation of the proposed pipeline.”
Uganda is a new entrant into the oil and gas market. The proposed oil pipeline stretching from Uganda oil fields to the Tanzanian port of Tanga will be the world’s longest electrically heated crude oil pipeline.
It is estimated to be one of the most expensive projects to develop upstream, midstream and downstream infrastructure and the country is looking to capitalize on lessons learned in other developing oil & gas markets, as well as from established producers.
“With an estimated 6.5 billion barrels of oil and close to 500 billion cubic feet of gas, Uganda is a promising site for exploration. Siemens has a proven track record of delivering fit-for-purpose technical solutions on a large scale in remote locations. This expertise and knowledge can play a decisive role in ensuring the performance and on-time delivery of a key infrastructure project of this magnitude,” added Laporte.
Siemens is considered one of the technology leaders in the industry because of its full spectrum solutions, products and services. “For many years Siemens have been supplying industrial automation, power generation and power distribution strengths and experience to the oil and gas industry.”
“What makes this special is that our expertise and technology is not only of benefit at the inception of a project but along the full value chain and throughout the entire lifecycle of an investment. Our innovative technical solutions ensure the sustainability of projects with a key focus on reliability, performance and economic efficiency.”
Siemens involvement in the third Uganda International Oil & Gas Summit follows on the back of its participation at Future Energy Uganda earlier this month as well as the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in May this year at the World Economic Forum in South Africa.
The company is collaborating with Uganda on a number of fronts related to the country’s immediate and long-term energy and infrastructure ambitions as well as actively investigating the best option to establish a local presence based on business sustainability.
Sabine Dall’Omo, Siemens CEO for Southern and Eastern Africa recently commented while in Uganda, “Siemens is a company that invests for the long term and is optimistic about the long-term fundamentals of the Ugandan market.
“We want to support sustainable development – with solutions and projects in Africa, for Africa and are actively reviewing the requirements for the organization to open an office in Uganda taking into consideration business sustainability.”
