The refinery is planned to be fed by the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) via a heated northern and a heated southern pipeline, for which the Nzizi Power Station, a 100 megawatt thermal power plant, using natural gas and heavy fuel oil as raw material will be built, a hospital and an international airport.

The refinery is planned to be built on a 29 square kilometres (11 sq mi) piece of land in Kabaale village, Buseruka Sub-county, Hoima District, Western Region, near the international border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the eastern shore of Lake Albert.

[6] Thus the refinery will be close to Uganda's largest oil fields in the Kaiso-Tonya area, about 60 kilometres (37 mi), by road, west of Hoima, the location of the district headquarters, and the nearest large city.

[9] The International Monetary Fund was quoted in 2013 as saying that Ugandas oil reserves are the fourth-largest in sub-Saharan Africa, behind Nigeria, Angola, and South Sudan.

The Hoima–Kaiso–Tonya Road, which connects Hoima to Kaiso and Tonya along the eastern shores of Lake Albert, passes through Kabaale Village where the refinery will be located.

[18] In July 2015, the government hired the Danish Ramboll Group A/S to conduct an "'early phase' detailed route and environmental study for an oil pipeline that will run from the Albertine Graben - Hoima to Buloba...."[19] As early as 2010, community opposition rose against plans to build the Uganda Oil Refinery, which led to repression against environmental activists.

[22] In March 2013, the government of Uganda engaged the US-based energy investment and consulting firm Taylor Dejongh to carry out an international search for a strategic investor in the refinery.

[23] In October 2013, the government of Uganda invited interested parties to bid for the construction, operation, and 60 percent ownership of the refinery in a public-private partnership arrangement.

[24][25] In January 2014, the Ugandan government shortlisted the following six consortia out of fifteen applicants for possible selection as strategic investor in the refinery: China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau ( People's Republic of China), Marubeni Corporation (Japan), Petrofac (United Arab Emirates), RT Global Resources (Russia), SK Energy (South Korea), and Vitol (the Netherlands).

[27] At that time, the firms still left in the bidding were China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau, Marubeni Corporation, RT Global Resources, and SK Energy.

[50][51] As of April 2018 the tentative ownership table was as follows:[52] In April 2018, the Albertine Graben Refinery Consortium signed a definitive agreement with the government of Uganda, committing to design, develop, finance, construct, operate and maintain the planned 60,000-barrel-per-day Uganda Oil Refinery in Hoima District, in the Western Region of Uganda[55] The signing of this Project Framework Agreement, allows for the commencement of the Front End Engineering and Design, Project Capital and Investment Costs Estimation (PCE) and environmental impact assessment and social impact assessments.

[57][58] In March 2022, following meetings with AGRC principals in Italy, Ruth Nankabirwa, the Ugandan oil minister at that time, estimated that FID for the refinery might be reached in 2023 and commercial operations could be expected in 2027.

According to media reports, Uganda is considering working with Sonatrach Petroleum Corporation of Algeria and with the member states of the East African Community in order to raise the necessary funding and the technical expertise to build the refinery and bring it online by 2027.