Uganda plans third oil exploration licensing round in 2025/26, minister says

 Uganda will launch its third petroleum exploration licensing round in the fiscal year starting July and has picked a winner for a tender to redevelop a large copper mine in the country's west, its energy and minerals minister said on Thursday.

In a briefing, Energy and Mineral Development Minister Ruth Nankabirwa said Uganda had opened up new areas and planned to conduct a "the third licensing round for new oil and gas exploration licences in the 2025/2026 (July-June) fiscal year".

Uganda discovered crude oil in the Albertine Graben basin near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo nearly two decades ago, but production has been delayed and is now projected to start this year.

In August, the country said government geologists were conducting preliminary surveys for oil in two new basins in the north and northeast.

Nankabirwa did not say whether the exploration acreage in the new licensing round was in the two new regions or in the Albertine Graben.

Nankabirwa said the ministry had picked a winner for a tender to revamp the Kilembe copper mine near the border with Congo.

"We are now in the last negotiations ... the process is almost complete," she said.

"Very soon we shall announce the completion of this process."

The Kilembe mine, at the foothills of the ice-capped Rwenzori mountains, is estimated by government geologists to contain about 4 million tonnes of ore that is 1.98% copper and 0.17% cobalt.

The mine has been in abeyance for decades after it was abandoned in the early 1970s by Canadian firm Falconbridge due to low copper prices and political instability.