"Standard Bank Set to Help Fund $5 Billion African Oil Pipeline", 13 June 2024

Standard Bank Group Ltd. said it is set to move forward with funding for TotalEnergies SE’s planned East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline project after completing a years-long review.

The $5 billion pipeline, which would stretch from Uganda’s oil discoveries to an export terminal on the coast of Tanzania, has faced strong opposition from environmental groups that have scrutinized potential lenders. Standard Bank, Africa’s biggest lender, in 2021 hired an independent adviser to help it decide on involvement in the project.

“We have done our governance processes internally,” Standard Bank Chairman 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. [...]

“We have all the lenders,” Nyembezi said, declining to identify them. She didn’t comment on the total amount of funding.

[...] The lender expects TotalEnergies to make an announcement over the next few months, adding that field developments are underway. [...]

TotalEnergies didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.