The pipeline runs through or near a number of Ramsar wetlands. It crosses the Biharamulo Game Reserve in Tanzania, which is listed as a IUCN category IV site.
The pipeline facilitates oil drilling in Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda, and passes through or near several recognized Forest Reserves.
The pipeline will impact the habitats of endangered species. For example, these include Eastern chimpanzees (Endangered), lions (Vulnerable) and African elephants (Vulnerable), per the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
The pipeline risks impacting two important, protected Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs) at the Tanzanian shore.
The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) is a proposed 1,445-kilometer pipeline that, if completed, will transport 216,000 barrels of oil a day from the oil fields of western Uganda to the Tanzanian coast. Its development is being led by French oil company TOTAL together with China’s CNOOC. The project is yet to be financed, although a trio of banks (who have all adopted the Principles for Responsible Banking) are acting as advisors. Pipeline construction for the project will cost $2.5 billion.
If built, EACOP is expected to trigger a massive expansion of the oil industry in East Africa, creating an export route for oil that remains underground for now. Much of the oil is located beneath critical ecosystems, including Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park. The oil carried through the pipeline, when burned, will add an estimated 34 million tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere each year – equivalent to the annual emissions of Denmark.
Extraction at the oil fields in Albertine Graben will most directly impact the Murchison Falls National Park, posing a serious threat to biodiversity and rare and endangered species. Moreover, important tributaries of the Nile flow nearby, and oil spills and other pollution affecting the river could have profound impacts as distant as North Africa.
Nearly 2,000 square kilometres of protected wildlife habitats will be negatively impacted by the EACOP project. A feeder pipeline will partly pass through Murchison Falls National Park. Another feeder pipeline will run through Bugoma Forest to the pump station in Hoima. Bugoma Forest is home to large groups of Eastern chimpanzees and EACOP is likely to severely degrade the chimpanzees’ wildlife corridors. From Hoima, EACOP runs through the Taala Forest Reserve. The potential loss of forest cover involved in constructing the EACOP is particularly problematic considering Uganda is already losing about 90,000 hectares of forest per year.
In Tanzania, the pipeline will run through the Biharamulo Game Reserve and Wembere Steppe Key Biodiversity Area. Biharamulo Game Reserve hosts a diversity of animals such as lions, buffalo, elands, lesser kudu, impalas, hippos, giraffes, zebras, roan antelopes, sitatungas, sables, aardvarks, and the red colobus monkey. The Wembere steppe is an important place for seasonal birds and an elephant habitat. Just as with chimpanzees, EACOP also poses a threat to elephant wildlife corridors.
Finally, two important Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs), the Pemba-Shimoni-Kisite site and the Tanga Coelacanth site, are at high risk given the huge amount of oil to be transferred offshore at the Tanga Port. These EBSAs host several Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) as well as Mangrove Forest Reserves, and coral reefs and waters with dugongs and sea turtles.
Both components of the project will directly impact several Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance. Oil extraction will take place within the Murchison Falls-Albert Delta Wetland System, a Ramsar site that plays an important role for wildlife in the National Park and is a spawning ground for indigenous fish species. The pipeline will also run near or through a number of Ramsar sites that lie just west of Lake Victoria, including Mabamba Bay, the Lake Mburo-Nakivali System, the Lake Nabugabo System, the Nabajjuzi System, and the Sango Bay-Musambwa Island.
The pipeline poses high risks of freshwater pollution and degradation, particularly to the Lake Victoria basin, which over 400 kilometres of the pipeline will traverse. The probability of a pipeline oil spill is high, particularly given that about a third of the pipeline is located in the Lake Victoria watershed, an active seismic area. Indeed there are already several accounts of oil spills or seepages in the Albertine Graben region, including one at the Kiboro hot springs on March 29, 2020.
In total, 5,300 hectares of land will be needed for construction and operation of the pipeline, and around 14,000 households will lose land. For these communities, whose land was gazetted as the right of way for the EACOP, the wait for compensation has been painful. Communities have been stopped from growing perennial crops from which they make a living and are forced to wait for the project’s Final Investment Decision (FID) before they will receive compensation.
