Uganda Enacts Law Against Venting To Stop Gas Flaring

The Ugandan National Government claims that by passing anti-venting legislation that forbids gas flaring, it has learned from Nigeria and other African nations.

This was revealed by Ruth Ssentamu, Uganda's Minister of Energy and Mineral Development, on the margins of the just finished Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas, United States.

According to the minister, the law also encourages investment in the nation's oil and gas sector.

Ssentamu disclosed this at the Africa Women in Energy International Summit, which had as its theme "Promoting Diversity and Partnership for Growth."

She said that it was done in an effort to save the ecosystem from deterioration, pollution, and lack of investment.

According to the World Bank, gas flaring, or the burning of natural gas in connection with oil extraction, releases more than 400 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions annually, as well as methane and other pollutants.

Ssentamu said that by developing its own oil and gas legislation and avoiding the errors of its forebears, Uganda had learnt from the experiences of other oil-producing nations, particularly those in Africa.

She stated that Uganda would begin producing its first oil in 2025 and that the nation has outlawed gas flaring and any other environmental dangers related to oil exploration and production beginning on the first day of oil production.

The minister stated that any country should naturally consider the discovery of oil to be a blessing, but cautioned that this blessing may change to a burden if it was not properly anticipated.

She continued by saying that if a nation opted to give up agriculture and rely only on revenue from hydrocarbon resources, oil may turn out to be a curse.

"Uganda prepared very well by training Ugandans to be the ones to negotiate the terms, policies and conditions for its oil industry and they are now the ones developing the industry.

“We put in place all the relevant laws to guide our operations. One of those laws stipulates that all the revenue we get from oil will go into infrastructure development only and not for eating or payment of salaries.”

She claims that one of the infrastructure improvements made possible by oil is electricity, which a nation needs to industrialise.

She said that refineries would be built with oil income since the nation wouldn't be in the business of using its petroleum resources to export all of its oil.

Regarding gender equality, she asserted that it was about time that women be given significant and front-row positions in the management of the economy.

"As a mother, women are naturally not selfish because they want every member of the family is happy in an equitable manner,” she said.

The energy minister continued by saying that women ought to be in charge of the industry.

She claims that women face the brunt of using firewood to cook when there is scarcity of cooking gas and a poor electrical supply, which reduces their life expectancy.