Kenya and Ethiopia have agreed to develop a refined oil product pipeline and aim to finalise plans by the end of 2016. The pipeline would run from the port of Lamu on the coast of Kenya to Ethiopia's capital city Addis Ababa. The project is expected to expand economic ties between the two Eastern African countries and will fuel Ethiopia's dynamic economy.
In April 2016, Uganda decided to replace a project to build a new crude oil pipeline project stretching from oil fields in western Uganda (border with the Democratic Republic of Congo) to the Kenyan coast by an Uganda-Tanzania oil pipeline project; the final investment decision for the Kenya route had been made in August 2015. The pipeline would have followed an existing oil product pipelines in the north of the country to Lamu in Kenya, where an export port would be built. The pipeline was expected to be completed in 2018-2019.
Kenya now aims to complete the construction of a 891 km-long crude oil pipeline between Lokichar in north-western Kenya to the port of Lamu by the second quarter of 2021. The US$2.1bn pipeline would enable Kenya to export crude oil from its domestic reserves, discovered by Tullow Oil and Africa Oil in 2012.