President Museveni has launched a $100 million fuel facility on Lake Victoria which has been billed to help bring down the cost of fuel in Uganda.
Owned by Lake Victoria Logistics ,the facility is located at Bugiri-Bukasa and has 14 tanks with a collective storage capacity of 70,000,000 liters.
It also has a 256-meter-long jetty, which facilitates the berthing of vessels, enabling efficient cargo handling but also has two tanker ships each with a cargo capacity of 4. 5 million liters.
Speaking during the function, President Museveni said the new facility is a great addition to the country.
He said it will contribute to the country’s efforts to decongest the road by moving cargo off the road to water and the railway.
By doing this, he said the road will only be left for passengers.
According to Capt Mike Mukula, the Managing Director of Lake Victoria Logistics, the facility’s tanker ships collect fuel from Kisumu and use the lake to transport it to Uganda.
“This will ease border traffic and reduce turn around time for moving fuel from the port to Uganda. This ensures traffic on our roads is reduced and this means reduction in costs,” Mukula said.
Mukula noted that the barges take only 18 hours from Kisumu to Entebbe and take 6 hours to load and 6 hours to discharge.
“This turn-around time will inject efficiency in the industry.”
He noted that they have invested over $100 million and that each of the two tanker shops can make 10 trips per month and 90 million litres can be transported per month.
He said they are looking at doubling the capacity to 180 million litres.
Officials said the project is expected to reduce transportation costs by 40% but will also significantly reduce pollution from trucks by 90,000 tons of carbon for each trip the barge makes.
A single barge carries 4.5 million litres per trip which is equal to 100 trucks.
“The facility will reduce accidents, delays and congestion that is caused by trucks. At 100% capacity, it will replace 100,000 trucks every year and avoid the need for these trucks crossing the border.”
