Total Energies ready to start construction of central processing facility

The construction of the Central Processing Facility-CPF, the heart of the Tilenga Project being developed by Total energies in Buliisa District is set to kick off.

The Central Processing Facility will house facilities that will be used in the processing of crude oil by removing impurities such as sand, and water, and separating useful and dangerous gases.

The facility is expected to process a total of 190,000 barrels of oil per day.

Total Energies commenced site preparation of the industrial area that will host the Central Processing Facility in May this year 2022 in Kasenyi village, Ngwedo Sub-county in Buliisa district.

Camps under construction in Tilenga Oil project

The work is being undertaken by Mota-Engil Uganda.

According to Christopher Ocowun, the public relations officer of Total energies, the industrial area covering about 700 acres of land will also host other facilities including the construction camps, drill support base, and construction support base.

“The drilling support base site is 100 percent complete, the construction camp and support base are also complete, ideally much of the work is done what we are remaining with is now the main work of the central processing facility that is where the main focus is being put and you know it is the heart of the project” Christopher Ocowun said

For instance, he says that works on the construction camp which will accommodate 4,000 workers are currently ongoing and being undertaken by the main contractor McDermott.

Solomon Balemezi, a civil and structural engineer at MCDERMOTT says that the contractor has already hit enabling infrastructural works which include clearing bushes on the land, fencing, compacting, and leveling the ground, drainages, and access to road construction.

“ Most of the platforms have been completed and handed over to the contractor for other structures to be constructed, At the moment we are putting our efforts to make ready the area for the central processing facility and this phase is what is termed as enabling infrastructure” Somoni Balemezi said

Charles Wawire, civil works and structural engineer in charge of works outside the industrial area says that site preparations for four priority well-pads have already commenced.

The site preparation which includes earthworks and concrete work for hosting the oil rig is being undertaken by Mota-Engil.

Wawire notes that two of the well-pads will be drilled in Jobi-Rii 5 and Jobi-Rii 4 in the South Nile and two others in Gunya1 and Ngiri3 in the North Nile to meet the time frame of having oil by 2025.

“Within the well pads currently we have three active well pads that we are doing site preparation in the south like we have done in the industrial area, in the north we  also have two more active well pads and all of them are  undergoing site preparation” says Charles Wawire

Total Energies is expected to drill a total of 31 well pads comprising 10 in the North Nile within the Murchison Falls National Park and 21 in the South Nile Buliisa region.

Ocowun says that they have so far employed over 2000 local Uganda employees and hope to have so many workers.

He notes that they are slightly facing a challenge of rain fall however he says it will not affect the completion period.

“As human beings we cannot prevail over weather if God decides it can even start raining now, these are natural calamities that we cannot have control  over although work stops whenever it rains but also in one way or another it is helping us to compact the place” says Christopher Ocowun

Crude oil processed from the Central Processing Facility will be transported from the oil wells through a network of flow lines measuring about 160 kilometers.

In April 2021, the governments of Ugandan and Tanzania along with the two oil giants Total Energies and CNOOC signed agreements to kick off the construction of the East African Crude Oil pipeline that will help to transport crude oil from western Uganda to Tanzania.