Bermuda Firm Part of Uganda Oil Boom
A Bermuda firm is expected to reap part of the bonanza if an anticipated oil boom transforms the Ugandan economy in the coming months.
Petroleum geologists working for oil and gas exploration companies recently confirmed the East African country has untapped national reserves of 2.5 billion barrels of oil. The northwestern Lake Albert region of the country sits above an oil field where Anglo-Irish Tullow Oil and Canada’s Heritage Oil & Gas have found accessible crude in more than 90 percent of wells drilled — one of the highest success rates in the world.
Bermuda-based Dominion along with Neptune Petroleum, the Ugandan subsidiary of London-based Towers Resources, have active exploration licenses in the region. Dominion began drilling operations in Uganda last year.
The Bermuda domiciled company is an independent energy company exploring for new oil and gas reserves in East and Central Africa. The firm was founded in 2004 and listed on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange in December, 2006. Its strategy is to become the leading independent upstream oil exploration company in this region. Dominion is actively exploring emerging petroleum basins in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania.
“Just having the petroleum is enough for many investors…and has led to reasonably positive expectations about the future of the country,” Lawrence Bategeka of Makerere University’s Economic Policy Research Centre told the news service Agence France Press.
Oil production, which is expected to begin on a largescale basis in 2012, is expected to radically alter the Ugandan economy. Currently more than 80 percent of Uganda’s 33 million people depend on agriculture for their livelihood. One third of the population lives on less than one dollar a day.
