$310M Kampala Storage Terminal Set for Groundbreaking

Kampala Storage Terminal construction set to begin

President Museveni has broken ground on the 320-million-litre Kampala Storage Terminal  (KST) in Namwabula, Mpigi District. The facility is intended to strengthen Uganda's petroleum-storage capacity and support the future domestic supply chain, and will be connected to the planned Uganda Refinery through a 211-kilometre pipeline from Hoima.

But there is an immediate red flag: Uganda Business News reports that the roughly $310 million terminal is being developed beside an open-air landfill involved in a legal dispute.

Fuel Storage Tanks Like this to be set up in Mpigi District

Why it matters: The terminal itself is strategically sensible and fits neatly into the wider first-oil infrastructure story. Uganda imports almost all its petroleum products, and storage provides resilience against supply interruptions, which are especially relevant now that transportation through the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted . But the siting issue illustrates strategic infrastructure can still be poorly integrated into its physical environment.

A petroleum storage facility next to unmanaged waste isn't merely an aesthetic problem. Fire risk, contamination, drainage, groundwater and emergency access all become infrastructure-design questions.

Takeaway: Strategic infrastructure needs strategic siting. A project can be economically important and still deserve tough scrutiny over how and where it is built.