Presidents rarely break ground on a $300 million project and then tell the crowd it is still not enough, but Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni did precisely that during a major ceremony in the Mpigi District.
The newly initiated Kampala Storage Terminal is designed to hold 320 million litres of essential petroleum products, including petrol, diesel, jet fuel, and kerosene. Scheduled for completion within 24 months, the facility will more than double Uganda’s national fuel storage capacity. With Uganda consuming roughly 240 million litres of fuel every month, the new tanks will buy the country over a month of crucial strategic cover.
The project serves as a vital cornerstone in Uganda’s ongoing ambition to establish itself as a prominent regional petroleum hub. President Museveni emphasized that expanding this infrastructure is non-negotiable, given that geopolitical conflicts, blocked ports, or railway failures can place national economies under severe pressure within a matter of weeks. Recent global supply shocks, such as freight rate spikes caused by Middle East conflicts, have proven that maintaining proper strategic stocks and diverse supply corridors is essential.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently credited Uganda’s 2024 fuel import system—under which the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) sources products through Vitol—with effectively cushioning the country against international shocks and stabilizing domestic pump prices. However, the Mpigi storage facility is merely one link in a much longer developmental chain. Additional projects include a planned refinery in Hoima, a 211-kilometer products pipeline into the country’s interior, expanded capacity in Jinja, and future regional storage facilities. Furthermore, Uganda stands on the eve of producing its first oil—named “Pearl Sweet”—which will be transported via the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) to the Tanzanian port of Tanga.
Regional cooperation is also expanding across borders. A memorandum signed between Uganda, Tanzania, and Vitol aims to establish an energy hub at Tanga, centered around a proposed bi-directional products pipeline comparable in scale to the EACOP corridor. This infrastructure will allow refined fuel to flow inland to Uganda or outward to the Indian Ocean depending on demand.
As President Museveni remarked during the groundbreaking, the nation is steadily moving forward. By coupling upcoming oil production with an expansive network of refineries, pipelines, and massive storage terminals like the one in Mpigi, East Africa is proactively building a secure, resilient energy future well before the next global crisis strikes.
