Uganda Prime Minister Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda asked investors and major stakeholders in the country’s Oil and gas sector to work together in order to expedite the development of the sector.

The Premier made the remarks at the joint meeting of the Policy Coordination Committee and the Oil and gas Technical working group.

The two Policy implementation Teams in Uganda’s Oil and gas sector were in a meeting to the review progress on the implementation of the Presidential Investors’ round table phase four at the office of the President in Ugandan Capital Kampala.

Dr Rugunda called the meeting to discuss key issues including; the issuance of petroleum production licences to licences oil companies, and the country’s legal and policy framework on local content for the oil and gas sector.

The above highlights were part of the resolutions of the oil and gas meeting held in March 2015 at Statehouse Entebbe

The oil companies argue that they are entitled to full blocks not less than five minutes by five minutes grids wherever they have made a petroleum discovery. Players also want areas crossing exploration boundaries into unlicensed areas to be licensed as one unit by adding them to the discovery made.

A total of 8 applications for issuance of production licences by Total and Tullow have been submitted to government of Uganda for review and consideration.

According to the Minister for Energy and Mineral Development, Eng. Irene Muloni, the Attorney General has guided that part of a block will be issued to cover extent of discovery as defined by appraisal.

Also discoveries crossing exploration boundaries where there is pressure communication between discoveries made by two licensed companies on either side will be licensed to the two parties through unitization.

Four sets of regulations under general, health safety and environment, metering of petroleum and national content have been developed under the Petroleum Exploration, Development and Production Act 2013.

The Chairman of the oil and gas technical working group, Herman Kasekende thanked Government for resolving the issue of value added tax on investments and also applauded Government for addressing the issue of infrastructure in the Albertine graben.