French oil company Total has suspended the construction of the 1,445 km Uganda-Tanzania crude oil pipeline, the so-called East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). The project would have required US$3.5bn in investment and depended on the closure of Total's deal with Tullow Oil and Chinese CNOOC. The US$900m deal would have reduced Tullow Oil's stake at the undeveloped Lake Albert project (Uganda) to 11% (from 33%), and increased Total's and CNOOC's shares to 44% (from 33%). The stake sale, however, was called off due to a tax dispute with the Ugandan government. The field would have an output of around 230,000 bbl/d at its peak.
Tullow Oil discovered oil in Uganda in 2006. After that, the country aimed to build a 216,000 bbl/d refinery that has been delayed multiple times. More recently the government of Uganda expected the project to come online in 2022 with final investment decision (FID) to be taken by end-2019.
The EACOP project was initially annouced in September 2017 and the stake sales had been under negotiations since January of the same year.