Page 13 - DMEA Week 26

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Tanzania gearing up for HGA talks

on EACOP with Total

TANZANIA TANZANIA’S government reportedly expects (NEMC) to complete and issue an environmen-
to begin negotiations with France’s Total on a tal impact assessment (EIA) certificate. Discus-
Tanzania expects host government agreement (HGA) for the con- sions with Total are on track to begin very soon
to begin talks with struction of the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline and should be completed by the end of Septem-
Total soon on a host (EACOP) in the near future. ber, he stated.
government agreement According to Salum Mnuna, EACOP’s Once the HGA is finalised, Mnuna said, the
for EACOP. national co-ordinator in Tanzania, the parties will then work on the other agreements
French company is already discussing the needed to start construction – namely, the share-
HGA with the Ugandan government. Total holders’ agreement (SHA), the ports agreement
and Kampala were able to begin these talks and the land lease tenure. “Once the agreements
after the former finalised the acquisition of are completed, the project will reach the final
additional equity stakes in the pipeline and investment decision (FID), which sets the stage
in the Ugandan oilfields that will be used to for further development of the project,” he told
fill the link from Tullow Oil (UK/Ireland), he The Citizen.
told The Citizen. Total, Uganda and Tanzania hope to build
Once these discussions have been completed, EACOP along a 1,445-km route from Hoima,
Total’s next step will be to start HGA negotiations a city near Lake Albert, to Tanga, a port on the
with Tanzania, he said. “The team which is cur- shore of the Indian Ocean. The link will carry
rently undertaking HGA negotiations in Uganda crude oil from Blocks 1, 1A, 2 and 3A in western
is the one that will engage with us here,” he noted. Uganda and will have a capacity of 216,000 bar-
He indicated that the Tanzanian government rels per day (bpd). Total has a majority stake in
had already wrapped up most of its prepara- all four blocks and in the pipeline since acquiring
tions for these talks but was still waiting for the Tullow’s 33.3334% stakes in those assets earlier
National Environment Management Council this year.™

PETROCHEMICALS

Iran starts up new

petrochemicals plant

IRAN IRAN marked the launch of the 140,000 tonne in investment. Thanks to their launch, national
per year (tpy) Miandoab petrochemicals plant output will reach 90mn tpy.
Iran aims to bring on last week, the Iranian energy ministry’s Shana Iran has sought to build up its downstream
stream 25mn tpy of news service reported. sector in recent years in response to sanctions
petrochemicals capacity Construction of the plant in the north-west- being imposed on its crude oil exports. It has
by March 2021. ern province of West Azarbaijan was started in found it easier to ship out fuels and petrochem-
2016. It is the first petrochemicals facility to be icals discretely, and some products are not sanc-
fed with locally-made catalysts, the head of pro- tioned at all.
ject operator Bakhtar Holding, Davood Rabbani, As a result of the fall in Iranian oil shipments,
was quoted as saying at a ceremony. petrochemicals became Iran’s biggest driver of
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attended foreign currency income last year. They con-
the ceremony via video link. He also oversaw stitute almost a third of the country’s non-oil
the inauguration of a new unit at the Imam exports, according to Shana.
Khomeini refinery in the central Markazani Much of Iran’s petrochemicals capacity is
province that will produce over 190,000 litres gas-based, using ethane supplies from the giant
per year of hexane. South Pars field as feedstock. Iran has the world’s
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, second-largest gas reserves after Russia, esti-
also attending the ceremonies, said that as many as mated by BP at almost 32 trillion cubic metres.
17 petrochemical projects were expected to be up Most petrochemicals companies in Iran are
and running by March 2021 with a combined pro- either directly or indirectly controlled by gov-
duction capacity of 25mn tpy and worth $11.5bn ernment-controlled state entities. ™

Week 26 02•July•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P13