The Tilenga Project is operated by TotalEnergies Exploration, and Production (TEPU) in form of a joint venture partnership comprising of the China National Offshore Oil Company (CUL) with a 28.33%, stake, the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) with 15%, and TEPU holding the majority participating interest of 56.67%. The project includes preparing facilities to support the production of petroleum from six (6) oilfields located in Buliisa and Nwoya districts. The overall completion of all the project components was 62.6% as of 30th December 2025.
The Tilenga Project is one of the two (2) flagship Upstream Petroleum Production projects in Uganda. The project consists of six (6) Onshore oilfields.
The development of the project is planned to be undertaken through onshore drilling of four hundred, and twenty (420) wells from twenty-nine (29) well pads, with three (3) drilling rigs, for approximately 4.6 years. The project is projected to produce 190,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) at peak, which will be processed and cleaned up at the Central Processing Facilities (CPF) located in the Industrial Area. The CPF consists of a series of tanks and piping systems through which the produced oil and the associated gas will be processed to remove any unwanted mixtures such as water and sand.
The project infrastructure includes over one hundred and seventy (170) kilometres (km) of buried flowlines, and a ninety-six (96) km feeder pipeline, a Lake Water Abstraction System, and other infrastructure such as the Victoria Nile Crossing, Bugungu Airstrip, Support bases, camps, and access roads.
The oil fields under the Tilenga Project have a combined volume of oil in place of 5.8 billion barrels of oil (Bbbls) with recoverable resources estimated at 874mmbbls.
Status of the Tilenga Project
Several project activities are progressing in preparation to produce oil. The overall completion rate for the Tilenga project is 60%. These include Enabling Infrastructure (EI) works, Engineering, Procurement, Supply, Construction and Commissioning (EPSCC), rig assembly and mobilisation in preparation for drilling, and Geosciences, among others as indicated below.
Drilling Related Activities
Three (3) drilling rigs are operational in Tilenga with two (2) rigs in the North of the Nile within the Murchison Fall National Park (MFNP), and one (1) drilling rigs in the South of the Nile (outside MFNP).The drilling of the four hundred, and twenty-six (426) wells on thirty-one (31) well pads implies that each well pad will have about fourteen (14) wells. This is to minimise the surface footprint in the project area.
By the end of December 2025, Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau (ZPEB) Ltd has so far drilled one hundred seventy-eight wells (178) out of the one hundred and seventy (170) out of the planned four hundred twenty (420) wells, therefore achieving approximately 104.7% of the wells required for first oil.
