Tanzania has signed a Host Government Agreement (HGA) with Equinor and Shell which will pave the way for launching the East African country’s proposed 10 MMT/Y LNG export project.
The $30 billion project is also aimed to “bring investment, technology, skills and infrastructure to the country, which will benefit Tanzanian businesses and its citizens.”
“We expect the final investment decision on the LNG project to be reached in 2025,” said Tanzanian president Samia Hassan. Since her appointment as President, Hassan has led the drive for global investment into Tanzania with the conclusion of the HGA being one of the Government’s priorities.
According to the Global LNG Database®, since last year, Tanzania has re-stared negotiations on the possible revival of plans to develop the country's proposed $30 billion LNG export project with the involved exploration companies [Equinor, Shell, ExxonMobil] as the country’s energy minister J. Makamba had said that “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."

Earlier, Shell had revealed that the major and its partners made “good progress” with the Tanzanian government in recent months to advance a LNG project in the African country.
"We have seen some real quick progress over the last year compared to what had been a much slower progress before and we continue to be hopeful that we can take this project all the way through to FID (final investment decision) at some stage," Shell's head of integrated gas Wael Sawan had said in March.
The development of Tanzania's vast offshore gas resources has been held up for years due to delays in government licensing agreements, but Sawan has remarked that some fiscal disputes "have now been resolved".

 

Last year, Equinor had confirmed that the talks with Tanzania's authorities were expected to focus on fiscal, legal and regulatory frameworks that could enable companies to make investments.
During the last decade, the Norwegian company made nine discoveries off Tanzania and it was considering to build a 10 MMT/Y LNG export project there, but in January wrote off the entire book value of $982 million, citing poor economics.
Tanzania's Block 2 estimated to hold more than 20 TCF of gas in place, while ExxonMobil also holds a stake. Shell operates Block 1 and Block 4, which are estimated to hold some 16 TCF of recoverable gas.
Talks on the future of all three blocks will restart at the initiative of Tanzania's authorities, with a focus on fiscal, legal and regulatory frameworks, Equinor had said.

 

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