Uganda will not begin oil production this year, a government spokesperson said on Tuesday, missing a long-standing target to begin extracting crude from its western fields this year, Reuters reported.
"Due to unforeseen challenges, we are unable to meet the above target," Patricia Litho, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development said.
She did not give a reason for the country's failure to meet the 2025 target and said a new date for production to begin has not yet been announced.
Uganda discovered commercial reserves of petroleum in the Albertine rift basin near its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo nearly two decades ago.
Hurdles including disagreements with international oil firms over taxes and development strategy and slow progress in the construction of requisite infrastructure have repeatedly delayed the start of production.
The fields, estimated to contain 6 billion barrels of crude reserves, according to government geologists, are being developed by France's TotalEnergies and China's CNOOC.
The two firms, alongside the Ugandan and Tanzanian governments, are also developing a $5 billion pipeline to help export the crude via a port on Tanzania's Indian Ocean coast.
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