Ugan­da stands to ben­e­fit from Trinidad and To­ba­go's vast ex­pe­ri­ence in the de­vel­op­ment and man­age­ment of the oil and gas in­dus­try. So said Irene Mu­loni, that coun­try's Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and Min­er­al De­vel­op­ment, as she wrapped up a study tour to T&T over the week­end.Mu­loni, who called for the deep­en­ing and broad­en­ing of the bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries, added: "I am ex­treme­ly hap­py about Trinidad and To­ba­go's suc­cess in in oil and gas sec­tor which has im­proved the coun­try's econ­o­my as well as peo­ple's stan­dard and qual­i­ty of liv­ing."Sher said Ugan­da is keen to learn the best prac­tices of man­ag­ing its in­fant but nascent oil and gas in­dus­try and avoid the pit­fall so that the re­sources can be used to trans­form Ugan­da to mid­dle-in­come and de­vel­oped na­tion in the medi­um and long-term.
Mu­loni led a ten-man Ugan­dan del­e­ga­tion on a week-long vis­it on the in­vi­ta­tion of the T&T gov­ern­ment. The del­e­ga­tion com­prised of the Omuka­ma of Bun­y­oro-Ki­tara King­dom, His Majesty Solomon Gafabusa Ig­u­ru ac­com­pa­nied by his ad­min­is­tra­tion and tech­ni­cal team from the pe­tro­le­um ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion de­part­ment of the Min­istry of En­er­gy and Min­er­al De­vel­op­ment.
En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine, who bid farewell to his Ugan­dan coun­ter­part at a cul­tur­al func­tion held at the Ho­tel Nor­mandie and arranged by the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NGC), re­it­er­at­ed the T&T gov­ern­ment's com­mit­ment to sup­port Ugan­da's quest for ca­pac­i­ty build­ing, in­vest­ments and trade."We are strong­ly com­mit­ted in fur­ther as­sist­ing Ugan­da in the de­vel­op­ment of its en­er­gy sec­tor. We are ready to in­vest in Ugan­da, pro­vide tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance and build­ing tech­ni­cal skills for Ugan­dans," he said."We have talked for long and this is the time to progress and put the talks in ac­tion. We shall sup­port Ugan­dan when­ev­er we are re­quest­ed to do so."
Dur­ing their study tour, the Ugan­dan del­e­ga­tion vis­it­ed the NGC's of­fices, NGC's fa­cil­i­ties in Guayagua­yare, the UTT cam­pus at Point Lisas, Petrotrin, At­lantic and the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate. They al­so at­tend­ed the Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions in Port-of-Spain. Mu­loni, said Ugan­da has con­firmed 3.5 bil­lion of bar­rels of oil in re­serves in just on­ly 40 per cent of the hy­dro­car­bon po­ten­tial Lake Al­ber­tine basin. She al­so said there was a sub­stan­tial amount of gas con­firmed but stud­ies are on-go­ing to es­tab­lish the ac­tu­al quan­ti­ty."We want the peo­ple of Ugan­da get in­volved in the oil sec­tor and there­fore build­ing their ca­pac­i­ty is our pri­or­i­ty so that they can get jobs. We are pro­mot­ing en­tre­pre­neur­ship skills so that Ugan­dans take the op­por­tu­ni­ty cre­at­ed by the oil and gas sec­tor and we have en­cour­aged them to form joint ven­tures," Mu­loni said."We are go­ing to use the oil rev­enues to build pow­er sta­tions to pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty for our peo­ple, rail­way sys­tem to im­prove our trans­port, in­vest in agri­cul­ture so that we add val­ue to our pro­duce and earn more in­come."