China doubles down on controversial African pipeline as Western lenders walk away
- US$5 billion project strongly opposed by environmental and human rights groups is now highly dependent on Beijing
- China is an ‘indispensable actor’ in East Africa amid continued Western criticism of its role there, analyst says
Chinese lenders are among a group of banks coming to the rescue of a US$5 billion oil pipeline after Western-backed financiers walked away amid strong opposition from environmental groups.
“Part of the money is going to come from Exim Bank of China” and “two companies from two African countries are offering funding”, Ugandan Energy Minister Ruth Nankabirwa said last weekend.
The announcement ended speculation that the project would stall after dozens of lenders and insurance companies refused to take part in financing.
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Uganda and Tanzania plan to build the 1,445km (900-mile) conduit to transport crude oil from two oilfields at Lake Albert in northwestern Uganda to the port of Tanga in Tanzania on the Indian Ocean. It is expected to transport 216,000 barrels of oil per day destined for international markets.
Financing for the pipeline is set at a 60:40 debt-to-equity ratio, meaning the US$3 billion will be secured as debt with the remaining US$2 billion to be financed by shareholders through equity contributions.
Aside from the main Chinese banks, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Development Bank have agreed to provide a total of US$300 million in financing. Irene Batebe, permanent secretary of Uganda’s energy ministry, said other African “funders that we cannot mention for now” would also provide debt financing.
Uganda has an estimated 6.5 billion barrels of crude oil – the equivalent of 1.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil.
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Since commercially viable oil deposits were discovered in 2006 on the shores of Lake Albert, at the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, production has been delayed by disagreements, funding issues and infrastructure setbacks.
In 2020, Tullow Oil, which is headquartered in London, sold its stake in the project to TotalEnergies.
But the project has run into strong opposition from human rights campaigners and environmental groups who say the oilfields and pipeline threaten the region’s fragile ecosystem and the livelihoods of thousands of people.
Last year, the issue found its way to the floor of the European Parliament, where legislators passed a resolution calling for a halt to the project over environmental and human rights concerns.
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According to #StopEACOP, a campaign against the pipeline, 25 major banks including Barclays, Credit Suisse, Citi, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Chase, and 23 reinsurers have ruled out backing the pipeline.
Earlier this month, Standard Chartered Bank walked away from financing the project, saying it “is not involved in the financing of EACOP”.
“Standard Chartered Bank’s or any other potential European financier’s decision not to finance the EACOP project is unlikely to have any significant impact on its financing,” said Venu Narla, a senior analyst for oil and gas at GlobalData.
Narla said the banks would cover the debt financing portion of the project, adding that the other 40 per cent would be financed by the equity shareholders. “China’s banks are the key investors in the EACOP project,” he said.
CNOOC’s Ugandan subsidiary has begun drilling production wells at the Kingfisher oilfield at Lake Albert, one of two commercial oil development projects in the country. The other oilfield is at Tilenga in western Uganda, which is operated by TotalEnergies.
TotalEnergies recently signed a deal with China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering, a subsidiary of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation, to build and supply pipe. In February, China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Company signed a deal with TotalEnergies to construct the ground facilities at Tilenga.
South Africa’s Standard Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) are acting as financial advisers and lead debt arrangers for EACOP. ICBC owns a 20 per cent stake in Standard Bank, South Africa’s largest lender.
Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation recently ruled out financing the project. It was not clear if it remained one of the debt arrangers and advisers.
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Brendon Cannon, a scholar specialising in security studies and geopolitics at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, said he did not expect any funding from Europe beyond the amount already raised by TotalEnergies.
“Total banked on European and other Western partners coughing up funding for this pipeline. Environmental concerns have, however, destroyed that option,” Cannon said.
“It’s a shame because while extracting and exporting Uganda’s oil is dirty and environmentally unfriendly, it would potentially raise funds for Uganda to institute sustainable projects like solar.”
Cannon said he did not expect any financing from Japan either because the Japanese government would not support any new hydrocarbon projects.
“China becomes [again] the indispensable actor in East Africa – even as the West and Japan criticise China’s role there,” he said.
