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AfrOil POLICY AfrOil

Abuja’s goal is to convert 200,000 commercial further,” he commented. “But we cannot move
vehicles to burn CNG in 2022, he stated. further without ensuring that you as our part-
Conversion to CNG is a matter of urgency, he ners are fully on board.”
added, because the government is trying to find Sylva also indicated that the CNG would be
alternative fuels before it eliminates long-stand- produced using natural gas from Nigerian fields.
ing price subsidies on gasoline, known locally This is in line with the “Decade of Gas” initia-
as premium motor spirit (PMS). To fast-track tive, which calls for using locally produced gas
the switch, he said, Abuja will provide half of all to power as much of the economy as possible. ™
the kits needed to switch vehicle engines over to
CNG and make additional support available in
the future.
“We said we must provide alternative fuel,
and the alternative that we concluded on was the
autogas alternative, to provide it for our people,”
Sylva was quoted as saying by the Punch daily.
He went on to say that Abuja needed the
co-operation of downstream operators for the
CNG initiative to succeed. “Since this agreement
between us [government and fuel marketers],
a lot of work has been going on, and we have
come to a certain point where we need to take it Abuja wants more Nigerian filling stations to sell CNG (Photo: NIPCO Gas)

Tanzania hopes new legal advisor will

assist with signing of HGA on LNG project

TANZANIA TANZANIA’S government remains eager to state-owned TPDC said it hoped to see work on
sign a host government agreement (HGA) on Tanzania LNG begin in 2023 and finish in 2028.
the Tanzania LNG project by April and hopes According to previous reports, the scheme
that the hiring of a legal advisor will help move will involve constructing a gas liquefaction
the deal forward, Energy Minister January plant at Lindi, in the southern part of the coun-
Makamba said on January 25. try. This facility will handle output from three
Makamba was making an announcement deepwater offshore sites containing about 35
on the retention of Baker Botts, a prominent US trillion cubic feet (991bn cubic metres) of gas –
law firm, as legal advisor for talks on the LNG Block 2, assigned to Equinor, and Blocks 1 and
project. Speaking in the city of Arusha, he noted 4, assigned to Shell. It will have two production
that the London office of Baker Botts had just trains with a capacity of 5mn tonnes per year
signed a deal with Tanzania Petroleum Develop- (tpy) each. The total cost of the project may
ment Corp. (TPDC), the national oil company reach $30bn. ™
(NOC).
He did not disclose the terms of the agree-
ment. But he did indicate that the law firm
would advise TPDC on the technical, legal and
commercial aspects of the proposed HGA.
Tanzania’s government began discussing
the Tanzania LNG scheme with Shell (UK)
and Equinor (Norway) more than seven years
ago. However, the project has run far behind
schedule; partly because of commercial dis-
putes between the companies and the gov-
ernment, partly because Tanzanian President
Samia Suluhu Hassan’s predecessor, John Magu-
fuli, made the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline
(EACOP) project a higher priority.
However, Suluhu and her administration
have been working to restart talks on Tan-
zania LNG, and Makamba confirmed last
November that negotiations were once again
underway with Equinor and Shell. Meanwhile, The proposed LNG plant would be built in the southern city of Lindi (Image: Equinor)

Week 04 26•January•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P11