In picking a United Arab Emirates (UAE) firm as the lead developer and investor for its 60,000-barrels-per-day oil refinery, Uganda has yet again opted for an outlier with the financial muscle but no technical expertise or footprint in the development of downstream refining facilities for oil and gas.
On January 23, Energy Minister Ruth Nankabirwa announced that the government had picked Alpha MBM Investments Llc from the UAE, with which Kampala signed a Memorandum of Understanding on December 22, 2023, outlining co-operation and negotiation terms for the refinery.
