This was revealed by the Minister for Energy and Mineral Development, Ruth Nankabirwa, in a statement yesterday.
The launch, according to Nankabirwa, will involve commissioning of the Kingfisher drilling rig for all 31 oil wells, including the deepest well which is over seven kilometres in depth.
The drilling rig, LR8001, arrived in Mombasa on September 12, 2022, and a total of 280 trucks delivered it in bits at the Pad-2 site in the mid-western Uganda district of Kikuube.
Its erection and installation works were concluded in November 2022 following third-party inspections.
“The first 8km fully automated silent rig in Africa, equipped with industry-leading technologies such as well site de-noising control, zero discharge system, and pipe column automation system,” stated the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) which is set to undertake the oil drilling today.
CNOOC also noted that the whole set of equipment is a landmark achievement of Chinese oil equipment to transition to environmental friendliness and low carbon.
The development plan for the Kingfisher field includes the onshore drilling of 31 wells from four well pads.
In the oil industry speak, a well pad is a graded area for an oil drilling site where drilling rigs and pumps are planted before the actual drilling starts for an oil well or several oil wells within the same site.
The Kingfisher Area oil project will also develop a central processing facility with peak capacity of 40,000 barrels of oil per day, and 19 kilometre of flow-lines that will connect the oil fields to the facility.
Nankabirwa noted that the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) work and services at Kingfisher project are subdivided into four packages.
These include pre-drilling civil works, oil field infrastructure, oil field production facilities, and installing the Kingfisher Development Area Project Feeder Line, with completion rates between 19.49% and 46.53%.