President Yoweri Museveni will on Thursday, September 17, 2026, preside over the groundbreaking ceremony for the Kampala Storage Terminal (KST), a major petroleum storage facility expected to significantly expand Uganda’s fuel storage capacity.
The terminal will be developed on approximately 300 acres in Namwabula, Mpigi District, about 26 kilometres west of Kampala. It will have a storage capacity of up to 320 million litres of petroleum products.
The facility will be connected to the planned Uganda Refinery in Hoima through a 211-kilometre pipeline, creating an integrated system for the storage, movement and distribution of petroleum products.
Uganda currently consumes about 240 million litres of fuel each month, according to the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC), which is leading the KST project.
Once operational, KST will complement the 30-million-litre Jinja Storage Terminal, as well as private petroleum storage facilities and depots across the country. The additional capacity is expected to strengthen Uganda’s fuel reserves and improve resilience against potential supply disruptions.
The terminal is estimated to cost about $310 million. UNOC has secured financing for the project with support from the government and will own and operate the facility.
The groundbreaking comes two weeks after President Museveni named Uganda’s crude oil Pearl Sweet, marking another milestone in the country’s development of its petroleum sector.
At the crude oil naming ceremony, Museveni made a case for domestic refining, arguing that processing Uganda’s crude locally would reduce some of the costs associated with importing finished petroleum products.
“Our refinery will be one of the most profitable because, first of all, it’s far from the ocean and it does not have the transportation cost which imported oil has,” he said. “When we refine our oil here, you don’t pay transit charges.”
KST is designed to receive both imported and locally refined petroleum products. The facility is also expected to serve as a regional distribution hub once the planned pipeline projects and the Uganda Refinery are commissioned.
The development will include a future Mpigi Remote Refinery Terminal, which is expected to receive petroleum products through a pipeline from Hoima for storage and distribution to domestic and regional markets.
The KST project is part of Uganda’s broader effort to develop petroleum infrastructure alongside crude oil production and refining. By expanding storage and distribution capacity, the facility is expected to play a role in strengthening the country’s domestic petroleum supply and supporting regional fuel distribution.
With the planned refinery, pipelines and storage facilities being developed as part of the country’s petroleum infrastructure network, Uganda is seeking to establish an integrated system covering crude oil production, refining, storage and distribution.
