To my mind, the problem here is the usual
kienyeji thinking: get something out of the ground, find foreigners who want it, sell it to them. That's where all these "we'll get rich from oil!" notions come from. As usual, "value-adding" does not come into the picture. Whether it is stuff going to land-locked countries or future stuff going out (from Uganda, South Sudan, etc.), that's pretty much the thinking. It's all about exporting crude (and then importing back, at much higher costs, refined product). One never hears about "let's build up refining capacity".
Contrast:
Tiny Singapore, whose only natural resources are grass and trees, is one the world's biggest players in the global oil+related industries. How did that come about? One of the things they decided to work on was to transform themselves into a "value-adding" hub, rather that just stay as a "pit stop" on the way to other places. Result: Singapore is now 3rd or 4th in global oil refining. And that's not all of it: there is also an incredibly huge petro-chemical industry and all that it entails.
Interesting commentary on Kenya:
Kenya is set to import record volumes of oil products in May as its economy gathers steam, soaking up some of Asia's excess supply and helping put a floor under refining margins.
...
Soaring demand from Kenya is helping support Asian gasoil margins at above $13 a barrel to Dubai crude, curbing the impact on prices of a supply glut in Asia as economic growth stutters in some key markets there.
And Kenya's imports, which also include volumes for land-locked Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi, as well as parts of Tanzania, could rise more if plans are successful to solve infrastructure problems such as the limited capacity of a government-owned pipeline.
Demand for petroleum fuels in Kenya and the region, especially for gasoil and gasoline, has been on the rise although infrastructure challenges, particularly the lack of capacity in its product receiving terminals, has curtailed supplies,"
http://www.reuters.com/article/kenya-oil-imports-idUSL3N0Y24D120150512
Topic: tullow to pump oil in 2020 development of infrastructure scheduled for 2017 (Read 1976 times)