Tanzania resumes talks on $30 billion LNG project
NAIROBI (Reuters) -Tanzania’s government has resumed negotiations with energy companies over construction of an estimated $30 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, Energy Minister January Makamba said on Monday.
Norway’s Equinor, one of the companies that has a stake in the project, last week said https://www.reuters.com/article/equinor-lng-tanzania-idUSL8N2RV71C that talks with Tanzanian authorities were expected to focus on conditions that would enable companies to invest.
“For the past two months, we’ve worked hard behind the scenes to get here. We’re confident that a final investment decision will come sooner than is traditionally the case,” Makamba said on Twitter.
The Norwegian company said it was too early to give any timeline for the decision process.
“There is much more work to do, but we are pleased to be engaging and framing the commercial, fiscal, regulatory and legal priorities,” an Equinor spokesperson said in an email.
A $30 billion price tag had been communicated by the companies some years ago, but Equinor does not yet have a revised estimate, the spokesperson added.
Equinor operates Tanzania’s Block 2, in which ExxonMobil also holds a stake and which is estimated to hold more than 20 trillion cubic feet (0.6 trillion cubic metres) of gas.
Equinor aims to work on the LNG project with Shell, which operates Block 1 and Block 4 off Tanzania, with 16 trillion cubic feet in estimated recoverable gas.
Shell declined to comment on Makamba’s statement on Monday.
The Anglo-Dutch company last week said its chief executive had been in talks with Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan about potential investments in energy projects.
(Reporting by George Obulutsa in Nairobi and Nerijus Adomaitis in OsloEditing by Kirsten Donovan and David Goodman)
