Uganda has picked UAE's Alpha MBM Investments to help develop a planned $4 billion refinery that would help it process some of its crude oil, Minister of Energy and Mineral Development Ruth Nankabirwa said on Tuesday.

Uganda in July last year terminated negotiations with a consortium that included a unit of U.S. firm Baker Hughes over the firm's failure to mobilise financing in time.

Uganda is counting on the 60,000 barrel-per-day oil refinery for its nascent hydrocarbons industry.

Uganda expects to start pumping crude commercially in 2025 from fields in the Albertine rift basin in the country's west near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema Editing by Alexander Winning)