TOTAL Moves Fayemi From Uganda

By  Sully Manope, East Africa Correspondent

Adewale Fayemi has left the position of Managing Director of TOTAL Exploration &Production in Uganda, for the equivalent position for the same company in South Africa.

In his new job he will be overseeing frontier exploration, a contrast to oilfield development work he was doing in Uganda.

This was, in any case, what he was doing before the Ugandan assignment: as Managing Director of TOTAL E&P in Cote d’Ivoire.

Fayemi has been replaced by Pierre Jessua, who until now, was the Managing Director of TOTAL E&P in Congo.

Fayemi spent 30 months in Uganda at the most crucial period of getting the $20Billion Albertine Basin development closer to financial sanction. On his watch, the French major influenced the decision to move the crude export pipeline from Hoima in Uganda to Lamu, in Kenya to Hoima in Uganda to Tanja in Tanzania. TOTAL also acquired 11% of the upstream stake in the project from Tullow and effectively became the key driver, with 44% equity. With his transfer to South Africa, he would not be the man on ground when the Final Investment Decision is taken, very likely before the end of 2018.

It is on Jessua’s lap that this huge assignment lands.