Page 16 - DMEA Week 36

DMEA FUELS DMEA

Total says it has no plans

to exit Tanzania

TANZANIA THE Tanzanian division of France’s Total has each other. The best business decision to make at
denied reports that it is preparing to exit the East that point was to sell some of the property but in
Total wants to remain African country, where it has a chain of around short, Total is here in Tanzania to stay,” she told
in the country long 100 retail filling stations. The Citizen.
enough to see the fruits Marsha Msuya-Kilewo, the corporate affairs Total Tanzania has had to take similar action
of its investments. director of Total Tanzania, told The Citizen last in past years, Msuya-Kilewo added. Since the
week that rumours of the company’s possible company finalised the acquisition of Gapco, she
retreat from Tanzania were baseless. The specu- explained, it has unloaded some of that com-
lation appears to have arisen in the wake of Total pany’s storage depots, filling stations and other
Tanzania’s recent announcement of plans to sell assets in order to streamline its business and
some of its retail assets, she said. She stressed, eliminate redundancies.
though, that the company was taking this step “[This] is not the first time that we are
not as a prelude to leaving Tanzania but rather selling some of our property,” she told The
within the framework of its asset management Citizen. “Some months back, we sold some
strategy. depots that used to belong to Gapco in Dar
Msuya-Kilewo explained that Total Tan- es Salaam.”
zania’s decision stemmed from its acquisition She also indicated that Total Tanzania wanted
of Gulf Africa Petroleum Corp (Gapco) from to remain in the country long enough to see
India’s Reliance Industries in 2017. That trans- the fruits of its investments. The company has
action gave the former company control of Gap- invested around $200mn in Tanzania over the
co’s retail filling stations in Tanzania, Kenya and last three years and commissioned a $20mn
Uganda, she said, but it also created a situation lubricant plant in Dar es Salaam in 2019, she
in which Total Tanzania’s stations actually found stated. Some of the investments went into prom-
themselves in competition with Gapco facilities. ising upstream and midstream projects, includ-
As a result, the Total subsidiary is trying to opti- ing but not limited to the East Africa Crude Oil
mise its asset portfolio. Pipeline (EACOP), she said.
“We reached a point whereby in some loca- “All our eyes and energies are now focused on
tions, our service stations were competing with the crude oil pipeline,” Msuya-Kilewo said. ™

P16 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 36 10•September•2020