PAU’s Mega Flagship petroleum Projects at peak phase ahead of first oil in 2026: ED Ernest Rubondo.

Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU) is celebrating 10 years since they started operations to regulate the sub-sector. 

The Executive Director of PAU Ernest N. T. Rubondo highlighted the achievements reached at during that period during a press conference held on 19th November 2025.

He said that following the announcement of the Final Investment Decision in 2022, it unlocked the engineering, procurement and construction phase for the country’s flagship petroleum projects including Kingfisher, Tilenga and EACOP have a projected investment of over 15 billion US dollars which he revealed that the 3 projects are at the peak phrase as we expect the first oil in 2026.

“The construction phase for these three projects is now at its peak with commercial production - First Oil - expected during the second half of 2026. The Authority leads the monitoring and regulation of these projects, which are mega in scale and whose implementation is intense” he said.

The Executive Director added that the activities being undertaken at the Tilenga and Kingfisher petroleum production projects include drilling of wells, in preparation for oil production, construction of two central processing facilities together with other installations.

He said that the overall completion rates for these projects currently are 60% for Tilenga, 74% for Kingfisher and 75% for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline.

“For the Kingfisher project, all the 19 wells required for First Oil have now been drilled, while 164 out of 170 wells (97%) required for First Oil in the Tilenga project have been drilled. For the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, manufacturing and delivery of all the pipes required for this 1443km long Pipeline were delivered to the port of Dar es Salaam last month, and as of last week, all these pipes had been moved from the port to the respective destinations along the pipeline route” he said

The Petroleum Authority of Uganda has over the last 10 years regulated the country’s oil and gas sector along five key areas including Resource Management, Cost Management, Data Management, Environment, Health and Safety Management together with National Participation among others.