Kampala — CANADIAN-owned Heritage Oil has announced plans to drill 10 more oil wells in Murchison Falls National Park in northern Uganda.

Abdul Byakagaba, the firm's senior geologist, said five of the wells would be located on the northern bank of the River Nile and five on the Southern bank.

"Six of the oil wells are farmed (confirmed) and work is expected to start in December," he said. "The four others are contingent wells, which means that their drilling depends on the results we get from the first six wells."

Byakagaba was addressing journalists on the second leg of a visit to the oil fields in the northern Albertine Graben, which started in Buliisa district and ended in Arua.

Dozith Abeinomugisha, a senior geologist at the energy ministry, confirmed that 10 more oil wells will be drilled. "Heritage Oil submitted a programme to drill more wells in Block-1 area and we have approved their programmes," he said.

Earlier this year, Heritage discovered world class oil in Murchison Park, located in the newly-created Amuru district. The reserves in the Buffalo-Giraffe complex are estimated at over 400 million barrels.

However, environmentalists and tour operators have already raised concerns over further oil drilling in the park. The area is home to hundreds of giraffes, elephants, buffaloes and antelopes and provides some of the most magnificent sceneries of the world-famous park.

Oil drilling activities, they argue, could scare away animals and tourists since they are noisy, require spot lights 24 hours a day and involve a lot of traffic.

Byakagaba, however, dismisses these concerns. He argues that an oil drilling site occupies only an area of 100m by 100m and that the animals will come back later.

"We restore the sites where we operate to their original state. We also comply with conditions imposed by bodies such as the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA)," he said.

Drilling effluents will be disposed off in an environmentally accepted manner, he further pledged. "What is important at the moment is to exploit oil in an environmentally sustainable manner. For Uganda to develop, we need to use all resources, wherever they are. In this case we need both the oil and tourism industry to co-exist."

The CEO of Tullow Oil recently said 800 million barrels of oil have so far been discovered in Uganda, worth about $50b (sh100 trillion).

Tourism, at the other hand, is one of the country's biggest export earners, reaching an all-time peak in 2008 with over 840,000 arrivals.

It is estimated that every tourist spends an average of $750 (sh1,500,000). This means that Uganda could have earned sh1.4 trillion from tourism last year.