Page 13 - DMEA Week 46 2021

DMEA TERMINALS & SHIPPING DMEA

Tanzania resumes talks with

Shell, Equinor on LNG project

AFRICA TANZANIA’S Energy Minister January preliminary talks with IOC representatives in
Makamba has confirmed that his country’s gov- Arusha. Ola Morten Aanestad, a spokesman
ernment has resumed talks with several inter- for Equinor (Norway), told The EastAfrican
national oil companies (IOCs) on the Tanzania on November 6 that his company had been
LNG project. informed of the Tanzanian side’s intentions dur-
Makamba made an announcement to this ing those talks. “The LNG [project] investors
effect in a pair of Twitter posts dated November have been notified of the meeting on November
8 and said he expected this large-scale initiative 8 by the government,” he said.
to benefit the country. “Today, I kicked off nego- Fedister Agrey, a project manager for Tan-
tiations for the $30bn Tanzania LNG project,” he zania Petroleum Development Corp. (TPDC),
wrote. “The project will transform our economy.” confirmed that the parties were due to begin
He further stated that Tanzanian authorities negotiations on that date. The government has
had been “[working] hard behind the scenes” made all the necessary preparations for the talks
over the last two months to lay the groundwork and intends to secure a stake for TPDC in the
for additional talks on the LNG scheme and Tanzania LNG project, she said on November 6.
went on to say that he expected the negotiations State-owned TPDC has said it expects work
to bear fruit soon. “We’re confident that a final on Tanzania LNG to begin in 2023 and finish
investment decision [FID] will come sooner in 2028. The total cost of the project may reach
than is traditionally the case,” he declared. $30bn.
The energy minister has not commented on According to previous reports, the scheme
the progress of talks on Tanzania LNG since will involve constructing a gas liquefaction plant
November 8. He did say in one of his Twitter at Lindi, in the southern part of the country. This
posts, though, that all of the IOCs involved in facility will handle production from three deep-
the Tanzania LNG project were taking part in water offshore sites containing about 35 trillion
negotiations. Representatives of Royal Dutch cubic feet (991bn cubic metres) of gas – Block 2,
Shell (UK/Netherlands), Equinor (Norway), assigned to Equinor, and Blocks 1 and 4, assigned
ExxonMobil (US), Pavilion Energy (Singapore) to Shell. It will have two production trains with
and Medco Energi (Indonesia) were all present a capacity of 5mn tonnes per year (tpy) each.
on November 8, he wrote. Tanzania will have to sign a host government
Makamba published the Twitter posts shortly agreement (HGA) with Shell and Equinor before
after Tanzanian officials wrapped up a set of construction begins.™

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