For this to become a trend, however, Uganda will need to perform better in senior school science. According to the National Examinations Board, sciences were a weak area in last year’s A-level results and the number of girls taking sciences actually dropped.

Proscovia Nabbanja

‘You don’t need big biceps!’

Proscovia Nabbanja was the first woman technical staff to be employed by the Petroleum Exploration and Production Department (PEPD), where she now serves as Senior Geologist.

She joined the department 13 years ago after completing a BSc in Geology and Chemistry at Makerere University.

“It was hard to blend in because we had several field trips which had harsh, aggressive conditions,” she recalls.

But the mother of three persevered and has since risen through the ranks to become the point person supervising a team that reviews technical proposals from the oil companies on all issues relating to the oil wells.

“It could be maybe where the oil well is going to be drilled, a suspension of the well, should it be plugged and abandoned or which horizon within the well should be tested. We discuss it with the oil companies after which we prepare the consent and the companies can go ahead and execute those programmes,” she says.

Mrs. Nabbanja also deploys staff at the oil wells to monitor the oil companies’ compliance with the approved work plans, and is responsible for managing the data that comes out of the drilling processes.

“I have to ensure that the data is per what was approved. If it is the right data, I ensure that the team reviews and evaluates it,” she says.

She explains that it is such data that is used to estimate the quantity of oil and gas that the country possesses.

Mrs. Nabbanja does not regret her decision to disregard advice from some of her friends to leave the ‘masculine’ sector.

“Some of my friends encouraged me to leave the profession and go for something more feminine but I never listened to them. You still maintain your feminine nature and it has nothing to do with developing biceps,” she jokes.

Now with a Masters in Geology from the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in the United Kingdom, and several other professional qualifications from Uganda and overseas,  Mrs. Nabbanja certainly has what it takes to enforce technical compliance in a sector she describes as “dynamic.”

“Everything is urgent and any minute wasted, billions are lost,” she concludes.

Pauline Irene Batebe 

‘Being part of the process is exciting’

Pauline Irene Batebe is part of the government team working round the clock to ensure that Uganda’s oil refinery is constructed.

Her role as a Petroleum Refining Officer, includes ensuring that equipment brought into the country to assemble the refinery and pipelines is of the right quality and standards.

“We have crude oil and this has to be processed to come up with petrol, diesel, kerosene and aviation fuel. My job is to ensure that whatever machinery we put in place to convert this crude into these finished products is appropriate,” she explains.

Ms. Batebe took a BSc in Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Dar-es-Saalam, after which she obtained a Masters in Advanced Chemical Engineering from Manchester University, with a bias in refinery design and operation.

“Like any other woman, when you join a male dominated sector, there will always be some misconceptions that you are a woman and cannot handle the job so you really need to work hard. I have always ensured that I do my work to the best of my ability,” she says.

“I love my work because I see it contributing to the transformation of Uganda. Being part of this process of changing the nation is just exciting,” she says.

Ms. Batebe has a passion for research and plans to commence doctoral studies in Product Design and Engineering in 2015.

Not frightened by ‘manly’ jobs

Catherine Amusugut

Thirty-year old Catherine Amusugut has worked at the Petroleum Exploration and Production Department for five years, having started there as a trainee while still pursuing a BSc in Geology and Chemistry at Makerere University.

She confesses that geology was not her dream career at the start, but she has grown to appreciate it and has no regrets. She has since upgraded to a Masters in Petroleum Geoscience from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, thanks to a scholarship from PEPD.

Ms. Amusugut’s job entails reviewing the oil companies’ work programs to make sure they are efficient.

“They usually present a range of things like  seismic survey they are planning to undertake, the wells they are going to drill, where they are going to drill them, for how long  and for what reasons. We listen to all this and make sure that all this information is convincing enough to allow them to explore that area, and appraise it, to decide if we have commercial resources there and to decide if we go on to develop this field,” she explains.

In executing such a critical role, Ms. Amusugut, has on some occasions found herself advising oil company executives forty years her senior, who have cut their teeth over time in the industry.

“Someone may think you are questioning their competence yet in actual sense you are just doing your job. But the good thing is we have gone to the same schools they (oil executives) have gone to and we have been exposed to the same technologies that they have been exposed to,” she adds.

Ms. Amusugut is certainly not frightened by ‘manly jobs’ and hopes to one day  lead a team that plans and oversees the drilling of a well.

“Whether we find oil or not, it would be good experience,” she concludes.

Report by Flavia Nalubega and Beatrice Ongode

Recently elected Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta promised sweeping but expensive reforms during the campaigns and must be eager to have Kenya on the list of the world’s oil producers.

Exploration news coming out of Kenya this month indicates that the country will shelve the champagne, for now, as international oil companies intensify their treasure hunt on and offshore.

Last week, United States major Anadarko Petroleum Corp. announced it had failed to find oil in its ‘Kubwa’ well on Block L-07 offshore Kenya.

Nevertheless, the company released an optimistic statement on its website, possibly because it  established a ‘working petroleum system’ in the area, showing that its geological properties are capable of generating and storing oil and gas.

“We are very encouraged with our first test of Kenya’s previously unexplored deepwater basin, in which mud log and well-site evaluation of core data indicates the presence of a working petroleum system with reservoir-quality sands,” read the statement in part.

The statement added that the ‘Kubwa’ well had provided useful data regarding the prospectivity of Anadarko’s acreage offshore Kenya.

The company will now prepare to drill the ‘Kiboko’ well, further south on the same block which it operates together with Total E&P Kenya (40 %) and Thailand’s PTT Exploration & Production (10 %).

Anadarko has been remarkably successful in Mozambique where it has struck huge natural gas deposits and hopes to replicate the same feat in Kenya.

Meanwhile, Tullow Oil is also hoping to build on the Ngamia and Twiga discoveries and has commenced drilling at the ‘Etuko’ (formerly Kamba) Prospect in the Lockichar Basin in the Turkana area. Results are expected in sixty days.

Report by Beatrice Ongode

Colonel Felix Kulayigye

The oil rich Albertine Region is secure from rebel attacks from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) despite media reports that the rebel group is actively recruiting in Kampala and parts of Eastern Uganda, says the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) Chief Political Commissar and former spokesman, Felix Kulayigye.

Speaking to Oil in Uganda by phone last month, Col. Kulayigye revealed that the UPDF was on alert and would not allow the notorious outfit to regroup and attack Ugandan territory.

“We know their plans and movements, we are on our guard, and we are in charge,” said Kulayigye. “We have put in place measures to ensure that the oil wells are secure, and this has been the case for the last couple of years,” he added.

Rebel arrests

Col. Kulayigye confirmed the arrest of some ADF operatives in April this year who had been recruiting for the rebel group in Kampala. He said that by the time of arrest, they had recruited about 80 boys.

“We are aware of some of these individuals who are working for the rebel group in Kampala and arrests have been made. We arrested three sheikhs last month who were recruiting children for ADF, one of them was a former ADF soldier and he has been remanded in Luzira,” Kulayigye said.

Led by its elusive rebel commander, Jamilu Mukulu, a muslim convert to the Salafist Tabliq sect from Kayunga District in central Uganda, the ADF rebel group has pitched camp in the volatile Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu region, bordering Uganda, since the 1990s.

The inability of the DRC government to manage the area, coupled with its abundance in minerals like gold, diamond and cassiterite, have transformed that part of eastern DRC  into a haven for tens, possibly hundreds, of armed groups and local militias.

Militarisation of the Albertine

Yet some local and international groups, as well as some Ugandan politicians have continued to criticise what they perceive as “undue militarisation of the oil sector”, arguing that security in the oil areas should be left to the police.

According to Dickens Kamugisha of the African Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO), the military deployment is creating unnecessary public tension.

“It is not about rebels,” he says. “Government is trying to prevent people from asking for accountability by creating tension. When masses see soldiers in a place, fear is created among them. This means they will not question matters of oil but leave it to Government and its police force or army or whatever,” he argues.

A November 2010 report by the UK-based anti-corruption watchdog, Global Witness, accused President Museveni of “conflict of interest” as well as “personalisation” of oil exploration activities in the country. The report voiced concerns over the deployment of the Special Forces Group in the Albertine, commanded by the President’s son, Brigadier Muhoozi Kainerugaba, and the involvement of Saracen, a private security group owned by the President’s younger brother, General Salim Saleh.

Police to take charge

Last year, the Uganda police announced it had formed an Oil and Gas Protection Directorate, headed by the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Abbas Byakagaba, to secure the Albertine Region.

According to Kampala Metropolitan Police Publicist, Ibin Ssenkumbi, training of the personnel to staff the Unit is still going on.

 “The Oil and Gas Protection Unit has been in place for about a year but they have not been very visible on ground because they have been training the officers and lobbying for logistical support. The trainings are within (Uganda) while other officers are trained outside Uganda,” he told Oil in Uganda.

Although Mr. Ssenkumbi did not divulge the exact number of trainees in the unit, media reports have put its strength at 20,000 men.

The Uganda Police Force recently tabled a 20 billion shillings (approximately 8 million dollars) budget before Parliament to run the Directorate.

Report by FN

Hon. Elly Karuhanga speaking at the summit (Photo: FN)

A section of Uganda’s business community has criticised a local content provision in the recently enacted Petroleum Exploration Development and Production Act 2013, that allows local businessmen to enter joint ventures with international firms servicing the oil and gas industry. 

In the Act, the second clause of Article 125 states, “Where the goods and services required by the contractor or licensee are not available in Uganda, they shall be provided by a company which has entered into a joint venture with a Ugandan company provided that the Ugandan company has a share capital of at least forty eight percent in the joint venture.”

But while addressing a COMESA Oil and Gas Summit in Kampala last week, the President of Tullow Oil’s Ugandan subsidiary, Hon. Elly Karuhanga, described the provision as unrealistic, despite its good intentions.

“If they (Parliamentarians) had used their brains, they would have known that we do not have such capacity and we need to train these people,” he told the delegates.

“Tullow is a twenty billion dollarcompany so if you say 48 % of Tullow must be owned by Ugandans, are you saying that Ugandans bring 10 billion dollars and Tullow shareholders should sell to Ugandans by force, by law? Is that realistic?” he asked.

The Country Senior Partner of Pricewaterhouse Coopers in Uganda, Francis Kamulegeya, was in agreement with Hon. Karuhanga, and pointed out that Ugandan businessmen lacked the financial muscle to fully benefit from such a provision.

“How do you protect against dilution because if the joint venture company is now providing oil services and there is a capital call, how do you deal with that?” he argued.

“The foreign companies are all listed in London, New York, Shanghai, Singapore; they can go to the stock exchange and raise money very fast and within a week or two, the money is here,” he said.

Mr. Kamulegeya noted that gradually, the local investor’s shares would be diluted because the foreign partners would keep on bringing in additional capital and yet the local investor may not match up the capital calls.

“This (article) is a good section in terms of intentions, but it is the wrong approach,” he said.

“I know this is a very hot topic but we must embrace it, we have to face the very hard facts that we are confronted with. We must have a very open debate to ensure that national content results in national contentment ,” he concluded.

Report by CM and FN

Delegates at the COMESA Oil and Gas Summit in Kampala. Front row (L-R): Uganda’s junior Economic Monitoring Minister, Henry Banyenzaki; Tullow Uganda President, Elly Karuhanga; and Uganda Industrial Research Institute Head, Dr. Charles Kwesiga. Fifth right is Norwegian Ambassador, Thorbjorn Gaustadsaether.

The COMESA Oil and Gas Summit opened in Kampala today, with speakers calling on the government and oil companies to recruit more Ugandans in the oil and gas industry, but also eradicate corruption.

“We want this business to benefit the locals and that is why we are promoting it. Ugandans have the brains, they have the skills. If you partner with the locals, you have a greater chance of succeeding compared to doing business otherwise,” Hon. Henry Banyezanki, Uganda’s junior Minister for Economic Monitoring told about two hundred delegates at the summit.

“I appeal to potential investors in the oil industry to partner with and support local content,” he urged.

Elly Karuhanga, the President of Tullow in Uganda and Chairman of the Uganda Chamber of Mines and Petroleum, decried the severe shortage of skilled oil and gas manpower in Africa.  “I was attending a conference in Houston and someone from Schlumberger showed us figures that in Africa alone, there is a shortage of 11,000 petro-professionals. This is a gap which Africa needs to fill,” he said.

Corruption is bad for business

Several speakers commended Uganda’s “impressive” economic development, but warned that rampant corruption in government departments was threatening further progress.

“American companies want to do business in Uganda, but they can only do so if there is a level playing field ensured by policies that enshrine good governance and transparency,” said Ruth Gallant, a commercial officer at the U.S Embassy in Kampala.

“The disease of corruption violates the basic trust between citizens and the government and causes investors to turn their backs on Uganda, seeking destinations where bribery, kickbacks and other forms of corruption are not the subtext of negotiation,” she noted.

In his remarks, the Norwegian Ambassador to Uganda, Thorbjon Gaustadsaether, urged government to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), in order to ensure transparency in the oil and gas sector.

The two-day summit is organised by Oliver Kinross, in partnership with the Government of Uganda and the Uganda Chamber of Mines and Petroleum.

It attracted delegates from Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo and Europe.

By Oil in Uganda staff

Joan Namukasa, a Tullow Oil Uganda drilling engineer, reviews technical reports with colleagues at a rig site (Photo: Tullow Oil Uganda)

It takes years of advanced, on-the-job training to qualify as an oil well drilling engineer—but three Ugandan women are staying the course, writes Cathy Adengo.

It is 2 a.m. on a cold, wet morning in Northern Kenya on board the Weatherford Rig 840 drilling Ngamia well and Joan Namukasa is struggling to keep her eyes open. She washes her face with cold water and takes a cup of coffee as she walks up and down the staircase to the rig floor, all in a bid to stay awake.

One of only three women drilling engineers in Tullow Uganda, Joan is used to being on site with her colleagues Susan Namuganyi and Susan Musiime-Okello but on this shift she is alone as ‘the Susans’ are away at a training course in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Oil and gas is traditionally one of the world’s most male-dominated industries and it is a great achievement to gain a place in it on an equal footing with the men.

“A career in petroleum engineering is hugely interesting and I would love to see more women in the profession because it is truly a rewarding experience,” says Joan.

Joan Namukasa Kamya joined Tullow in 2010 is part of a Graduate Drilling Engineering Training Program where graduate engineers spend time on Tullow’s various sites to gain operational experience.

She is in charge of producing daily drilling operations reports, preparing mud reports and project cost estimates and following up on the service companies.

Her training requires her to be at the rig site to learn about the drilling operations as per the design, programme and detailed procedure of the well. The trainees help ensure that the service companies and drilling contractors follow the programs to the letter.

Susan Musiime-Okello also joined Tullow in 2010 as a graduate drilling engineer fresh from university. She had gained a Masters in Petroleum and Environmental Process Engineering but lacked practical experience in the oil and gas industry.

Tullow was keen to develop and enhance her skills with further training and the hands-on experience required to make her a competent drilling engineer. She has spent much of the last two years at rig sites in Uganda such as Kigogole-6, Nsoga-2, Ngege-3 and Waraga-1, working alongside and learning from the more experienced personnel. Her role also involves supporting field operations from the office in Kampala, under the supervision of more senior drilling engineers.

The third Ugandan woman trainee is Susan Namuganyi who joined Tullow as a graduate drilling engineer in 2011 and has since become a wellsite drilling engineer with a promising career ahead of her.

Since enrolling in the program Susan has worked on land rigs in Uganda and on deepwater projects in Ghana.

In addition to the practical experience, Tullow offers further in-class training courses at key petroleum engineering training institutions to supplement self-study modules and in-house learning.

It is often hard for women to be taken as seriously as men on technical subjects in the field of petroleum engineering and as such it is important for them to prove their technical abilities. Tullow makes this possible through its structured development programme, which is internationally recognized and offers experience across the world in countries where Tullow Oil operates.

According to Susan Musiime-Okello, being female has not hindered her learning at all as she is treated with respect by her male counterparts. As well the training and study opportunities she has received, the recently married mother of one has had the chance to travel the world and experience different cultures, which helps her to interact and work with a global team.

As the process to becoming a skilled drilling engineers takes time and lots of experience, Tullow is continuously developing new programmes to continue the learning process.

In 2011, a Well Engineering Development Program was launched with 14 participants from six countries—Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Ireland, South Africa and England. It is a structured program that involves ‘accountability’ to measure the trainees’ progress through assessment of modules and courses they have attend.

So far, the three Ugandan women drilling engineers have attended a total of eight training courses in various countries. The training and mentorship opportunities they have received have not only empowered them as individuals, but are nurturing them into well groomed female engineers advancing their country’s national development.

Yet they all agree that more should be done to make the industry more attractive to women. According to Susan Namuganyi, “With the right training and ability, a girl can be as good as a guy. Gender is irrelevant.”

Cathy Adengo is Tullow Uganda’s Corporate Communications Manager

There is a stark contrast between the greyish, peeling, aging walls of the small houses and the brand new sheets they are roofed with.

“The compensation money excites people here,” says Onencan Paolyel, who runs a local community based organisation in Buliisa town council. “They buy motorcycles and mabati (roofing sheets).”

Fancy roofing appears to be one of the more popular ways of spending the windfall that farmers received as compensation for their crops late last year, when surveys were being conducted in their area, near the productive Ngara-2 oil well.

Most of them received at least half a million shillings, and admitted that they had never earned that much money, yet they also believed that they deserved more.

In some cases, several members of the same household would be compensated individually if their gardens were neighbouring each other.

“Sometimes it brings conflict because Buliisa is a cultural area,” says Onencan. “It is mainly the women who till the land. But when it comes to compensation, the men want to take the money. The man says the garden belongs to him, because he owns the land, but the woman argues that the crops are hers,” he explains.

An eight month wait

Florence Akumu used the money to feed her five children for about five months.

Florence Akumu, a forty-one year old divorced farmer, received five hundred thousand shillings last year as compensation for her crops that were cut down in March 2012.

She told Oil in Uganda that she had expected to be paid at least one million because “a lot of maize and cassava was destroyed” when some men “made a road through my garden.”

Ms. Akumu said that the ‘road’ was about two metres wide, and cut through her entire plot of land, measuring about quarter an acre.

She added that no one had negotiated with her before invading her garden, but some men told her she would be paid for her loss. The sum was not disclosed.

“About eight months later in November, some people who we were told were representatives of Tullow, but different from those who cut down the crops, came here and called a meeting under that tree,” she said, pointing to a huge mango tree, a stone’s throw away from her compound.

“They would call out a name, you go to the desk, you are given an envelope and told to sign. I received five hundred thousand but I don’t know what my neighbours received because each of us was handled individually,” she said.

She admits that it was the largest sum of money she had ever held in her entire life but regrets that she did not do much with it.

“I bought clothes for my three children, and used the balance for feeding. It lasted about five months,” she said.

Marital conflict

Zainab Nsekanabo was forced to temporarily flee her home after receiving the money due to misunderstandings with her husband

Forty year old Zainab Nsekanabo, a farmer, had a sadder recollection of her ‘rich’ days.

She said that her marriage temporarily fell apart and she was forced to abandon her marital home after receiving compensation of eight hundred thousand for her crops—maize, cassava and beans—on her one acre plot of land.

“My husband said he wanted the money, but I refused because I was worried he would use it to marry other women,” she said.

“So I hid the money with a friend and left the home for a while,” she revealed, leaving behind her five children.

When she returned a month later, her husband had given up all hope of ever accessing the money. She then retrieved the money from her friend and used it to purchase clothes for her children, utensils, and other household items.

“We are now back together and okay,” she concludes.

Report by CM and BO

Ms.Winnie Ngabiirwe

By Winfred Ngabiirwe

The discussions regarding oil sector management seemed to have taken a nosedive over the past four months, following the passing of the Upstream Bill by parliament.

Since then, the discussion appears to have shifted to other issues that are targeting women’s wellbeing such as the legislation on miniskirts, and the now deceased Marriage and Divorce Bill. Now that the latter has been buried, maybe we should go back to other more salient issues such as the oil debate, but this time questioning where the women come in, or are left out.

The discovery of commercially viable oil deposits in the Albertine region provides an opportunity to accelerate Uganda’s development and improve access to basic necessities of life for citizens, that is if the industry’s development processes and revenues from therein are well managed.

As the oil legislation processes have gone on for the past four years and still continue, we need to start asking whether women have been involved right from community consultations to national debates in parliament, and if their issues have been taken care of.

The discussion should look at economic opportunities and challenges the industry is pausing, attend to environmental issues that will have, among other things, impact on community livelihoods, as well as social dimensions ranging from ownership, access and utilization of land in Uganda’s oil region.

History shows that in all developments, whether positive or negative, women are usually the greatest victims.

If it is grabbing land for development, it is women who will suffer as they look for the next plot of land to till for survival. And even then in positive developments, we have seen marginalization of women amidst a developing community lead to high levels of prostitution and other vices.

In rural Hoima and Buliisa today, women are anxious, partly because they do not know what is going on or they have been misinformed of what is happening or coming.

They are struggling to understand how the compensation and resettlement is being implemented. They want to know what economic opportunities are available and how they can tap into that, albeit with limited skills and resource.

Then there is the issue of men ‘misusing’ compensation money, especially for the gardens that were cultivated by women. How will women feed their families? Will they all get a share of the compensation money?

Can men and women discuss comfortably about these realties the industry is bringing to their communities?

Do we know how many Ugandan women are employed by oil companies and what their ranks are? Do we know how many Ugandan women own a company that supplies goods or services to the oil industry? Or those employed by these companies?

One may argue that there are not many skilled women to be employed by the oil and gas sector currently. So, can the government give us figures of the boys and girls currently studying at the Uganda Petroleum Institute? Are we balancing numbers to the best possible extent?

If our government appreciates that gender equality and women’s rights are important in the struggle against poverty, disease and conflict, then the time is now to pay attention and provide a platform to the millions of women yearning to take part in shaping Uganda’s extractive industry.

Women are entitled to know what natural resources we have and whether we are getting a fair deal for their extraction, what the money from these resources will do and all the other issues in between. I think it is time for a gender policy in the extractives industry.

Winfred Ngabiirwe is the Executive Director, Global Rights Alert

EITI is an international initiative that operates on the principle that companies working in the extractives sector of member countries must publicly disclose payments they make to governments and governments disclose whatever revenues they receive from those companies.

Thirty seven countries worldwide have signed up to the initiative since it became fully operational in 2007.

“The DRC still receives shockingly little (money) for its mineral resources. It is not surprising that there are great challenges for DRC to produce reliable and comprehensive EITI reports, but it is making progress and generating important debate,” EITI Chairperson, Clare Short said in a statement on the EITI website.

DRC signed up as an EITI candidate in 2008, and has since completed two EITI validations. But the EITI board was not satisfied with the country’s latest validation report and suspended DRC, advising it to take significant corrective actions in the next twelve months or risk being delisted completely.

The suspension comes amidst media reports that 88 million dollars that was expected to have been paid into the central bank in the last two years by one of the country’s tax bodies could not be traced.

DRC now joins five other countries on the suspended list, four of them in Africa. They are  Sierra Leone, Central African Republic (CAR), Madagascar, Mauritania and Yemen.

The suspension could make it difficult for DRC to obtain loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which already suspended a 225 million dollar program due to lack of transparency in the mining sector.

The Uganda case

While on a visit to Uganda in June last year, EITI Head Clare Short urged Uganda to join EITI, describing the country’s delay as “a bit worrying”.

Although Uganda’s Oil & Gas Policy (2008) pledges “disclosure of payments and revenues from oil and gas using simple and easily understood principles,” the government has been reluctant to make a formal application to join the EITI.

Ugandan civil society activists have repeatedly urged the government to join EITI before it commences oil production.

Having ‘lost’ the battle over the formulation of the new oil laws in Uganda, which are perceived as giving too much authority over the oil and gas sector to the government, some activists believe that this initiative could as well be their last line of defence in their quest for transparent oil revenue management.

Report by BO

This is the largest overseas acquisition ever made by a Chinese company, as China seeks to deepen its footprint in developed countries.

According to Xinhua News Agency, China’s three major energy companies-China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec), China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and CNOOC – closed acquisition deals overseas worth a total of $25.4 billion in 2012.

Most of China’s past energy acquisitions have been in underdeveloped and sometimes turbulent countries.

CNOOC had attempted to acquire Unocal Corp, an American oil company, much earlier in 2005, but the 18.5 billion dollar deal was frustrated by American politicians.

But later in 2011, the relentless CNOOC acquired another Canadian oil company, OPTI, automatically becoming a partner with Nexen, and paving the way for its acquisition.

A statement on CNOOC’s website said Nexen, which has oil sands and shale gas in Western Canada and other assets in the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, will now operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of CNOOC.

CNOOC was established by China’s State Council (cabinet) in 1982, to serve as the Chinese partner of international oil companies exploring and extracting oil and gas in Chinese waters.   The corporation and its numerous subsidiaries have grown steadily and strongly, to become one of the world’s largest “integrated” oil companies, working in all aspects of the industry, from upstream exploration, to refining, processing, storage and retailing.

In Uganda, the company owns a third of the licensed exploration acreage following a deal last year in which Tullow Oil sold off two thirds of its assets in the Lake Albert area to CNOOC and French giant Total E&P.

The three companies now operate a joint venture partnership, each of them with a 33.33 percent stake in exploration areas EA 1, EA 2 and EA 3A.

Report by CM