Oil & Gas, Regional

EACOP pipeline to take crude by December as first oil moves to 2027

11th October, 2026

The 1,443km East African Crude Oil Pipeline will be ready to receive crude by mid-December, Ugandan officials say, with first commercial oil from the Tilenga and Kingfisher fields now expected before the end of June 2027. The Petroleum Authority of Uganda links the change to disrupted equipment shipments from the Middle East.

First commercial oil from Uganda is now expected before the end of June 2027, and the 1,443km East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) that will carry it to the Tanzanian port of Tanga “will be ready to receive crude by mid-December 2026”. That timeline came from Maximus Ochai, chair of the Ugandan parliament’s Finance Standing Committee, who relayed it from Finance Minister Henry Musasizi and officials of the Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU) and the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC).

The PAU has linked the change to disrupted equipment shipments from the Middle East, with components including metering systems and electrical instrumentation still to arrive and be installed. The pipeline had been due to open on 1 October, with a first export cargo expected the same month.

In September, UNOC said the pipeline was more than 90% complete, up from the 81% the PAU reported in March, when the Tilenga field stood at 67% and Kingfisher at 77% and the authority told parliament’s Public Accounts Committee that first oil would come by the end of July 2026.

The $5bn pipeline is designed to carry 216,000 barrels a day, rising to 246,000, and UNOC has appointed Vitol to market the crude, which it has branded Pearl Sweet and puts at a sulphur content of 0.12%.

Earlier first-oil targets ran from around 2018 to 2025, with past delays attributed to negotiations and development plans, and the final investment decision on the fields and the pipeline was announced in February 2022.

Images: EACOP

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