Standard Bank gives green light to $5bn pipeline project

Standard Bank said it is set to move forward with funding for TotalEnergies' planned East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline project after completing a years-long review. The $5bn pipeline, which would stretch from Uganda’s oil fields to an export terminal on the coast of Tanzania, has faced strong opposition from environmental groups that have scrutinised potential lenders. Fin24 reports that Standard Bank in 2021 hired an independent adviser to help it decide on involvement in the project. ‘We have done our governance processes internally,’ Standard Bank chair Nonkululeko Nyembezi said in an interview in Rio de Janeiro. That includes a credit review and ‘the environmental and social due diligence, which took quite a long time,’ she added. Activists opposed to the pipeline have asked banks to shun the project, arguing that it will harm wildlife habitats, impact communities and increase greenhouse gas emissions. Residents displaced by its construction have been inadequately compensated and had their lives disrupted, according to a Human Rights Watch report. At the same time, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has rallied in support of the project, publicising its backing by China’s leader, Xi Jinping. The pipeline’s cost has increased to $5bn from an earlier estimate of $4bn, Uganda’s Energy Ministry said in January. ‘We have all the lenders,’ Nyembezi said, declining to identify them. She didn’t comment on the total amount of funding.