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  • Oil companies try their best to hire locals

    Monday, 27th January 2014 | Local Content

    Total’s General Manager, Loic Laurandel, (L) flags off two Ugandans in June last year who were part of a group that the company sponsored to undertake oil and gas courses in France. Upon return, such Ugandans stand a high chance of getting employed in the oil and gas sector.

    Protests against an influx of outside workers in Kenya’s Lake Turkana area, which forced Tullow to suspend its drilling operations there in October last year, underlined the strength of local demands for oil jobs and opportunities. Read More

  • Costly licenses eliminate local firms

    Thursday, 23rd January 2014 | Companies, Local Content

    East Africa’s private sector is not yet strong enough to join the bidding for oil exploration and production licences.

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  • What does oil mean for Ugandan farmers?

    Monday, 20th January 2014 | Local Content

    Paul Kasaija sells just a small fraction of his pineapple crop to the oil camps, but expects demand to increase as the camps grow. (Photo: C. Sirisena)

    Supplying fresh produce to oil workers has been widely touted as one of the potential benefits of oil exploration for rural people in oil-bearing districts. Yet local communities and activists claim that the catering companies serving the oil camps source most of their produce from outside the oil areas, even from abroad.

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  • Bunyoro business lags behind

    Wednesday, 8th January 2014 | Local Content

    Buhuka Primary School in Hoima was built by Global Construction, a local firm. Local businesses say they are losing out on oil contracts but some let themselves down through sloppy standards.

    After the discovery of oil in Bunyoro, local entrepreneurs expected a lot of business deals with both government and international oil companies. But as the country enters the oil production phase, most local companies are still wondering where the oil opportunities are.

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  • Ugandan firms struggle to cash in on oil

    Monday, 6th January 2014 | Companies, Local Content

    Many local firms aspire to follow in the footsteps of Ben Mugasha’s (center) Bemuga Forwarders company, a well-known logistics service provider in Uganda’s oil industry, but are hamstrung by lack of credit, poor accounting standards and a history of corruption. Here, he is pictured receiving an award for his company emerging sixth in last year’s  survey of the top 100 mid-sized companies in the country. (Photo courtesy of Ben Mugasha)

    Over the next few years, trillions of shillings will be spent bringing Uganda’s oil on-stream.  Oil companies have said it will take around US$ 10 billion to develop the oilfields. Read More

  • Image: cartoon

    Local content rules unclear and impractical, say business analysts

    Monday, 2nd December 2013 | Companies, Economy, Local Content

    Professor Jenik Radon

    Sections of Uganda’s new Petroleum Act which are meant to maximise oil-related opportunities for Ugandan businesses are hard to interpret and may be impossible to implement in practice, according to business analysts consulted by Oil in Uganda. Read More

  • Image: Ghana's FPSO

    Ghana passes local content law

    Thursday, 28th November 2013 | Companies, International, Local Content

    The Kwame Nkrumah Floating Production, Storage and Offloading facility in Ghana’s offshore Jubilee Field, operated by Tullow and partners.  (Photo: Tom Fowler)

    Ghana’s Parliament passed the Petroleum Local Content and Local Participation Regulations, 2013 (L.1.2204) last week, amidst stiff opposition from the upstream oil companies operating in the country. Read More

  • Ugandans must defend their stake

    Thursday, 24th October 2013 | Companies, Local Content

    Mr. Ben Mugasha (Photo: Ssonko Isaac)

    Ben Mugasha’s Bemuga Forwarders Ltd. is possibly the most well-known oil and gas logistics service provider in Uganda. In an interview with him below, we bring you a telling story of the challenges faced by home-grown companies in their pursuit of local content, and their efforts to remain competitive in a nascent, capital intensive industry, that is quickly getting flooded with billion-dollar foreign firms with decades of expertise in the business. Read More

  • Ntoroko locals await oil news

    Monday, 21st October 2013 | Local Content, Social impacts

    Kanara town in Ntoroko District (Photo: Emil Hougaard)

    More than one year after the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) failed to find oil in its Kanywataba prospect, residents of Kanara and Rwebisengo sub-counties in Ntoroko district remain confused on the status of ‘their’ oil resources. Read More

  • Local law firm to advise on $ 2.5 billion refinery project

    Wednesday, 16th October 2013 | Companies, Infrastructure, International, Law, Local Content

    Part of the 29 Sq.Km that has been earmarked for the refinery in Buseruka Sub-county, Hoima District (Photo: Thomas White)

    A Ugandan law firm, Katende Ssempebwa and Co. Advocates, will provide local counsel on the procurement of an investor and operator of the country’s first oil refinery. Read More