The decision is a vital step for oil firms to make a final investment decision.
Two possible routes have been proposed, one running through north Kenya to the coast in the Lamu region and a second following the route of an existing products pipeline further south that would run to the port of Mombasa, Reuters reports.
According to Reuters, oil executives say they cannot make progress with their final investment decision on developing discoveries in Uganda and Kenya until the pipeline route and related costs are clear.
“We told the contractor to do a thorough analysis of the two routes and when it has done the analysis we will be able to meet and make a decision,” Joseph Njoroge, the principal secretary at Kenya’s energy ministry, reportedly told Reuters.
He said the analysis by Japan’s Toyota Tsusho should be completed in about two weeks, and a decision by Uganda and Kenya could happen a week or two later.
That means the decision on the route could be taken in “three weeks to a month” from now, and construction could be completed “by about 2018 or 2019”, he is reported to have said.
Britain’s Tullow Oil, with stakes in Uganda and Kenya, has previously said it expects to decide on whether to proceed with investment in early 2016.
France’s Total and China National Offshore Oil Corporation are also investing in Uganda, while Tullow’s partner in Kenya is Africa Oil.
Despite the slide in oil prices in the past year, analysts say the Kenyan and Ugandan plans are unlikely to be shelved because they are relatively easy and cheap to access compared with offshore finds.
Kenya has previously talked of piping oil along a corridor of land in the north of the country to Lamu, where it wants to build a new port to serve the region. It says work on Lamu port has begun.