LNG

The national oil and gas company of the East African nation of Tanzania has signed an agreement to develop a small-scale LNG project to boost domestic gas use ahead of a planned large-scale LNG export project.

Tanzania, the future LNG exporter, and neighbour Uganda are making progress on oil and natural gas projects, signalling the start of the main construction phase for the region’s first major cross-border pipeline project.

Oct 30 (LNGJ) - Germany launched a two-pronged diplomatic blitzkrieg of West and East Africa with the Chancellor and the President simultaneously visiting each side of the continent and seeking the permanent replacement of Russian natural gas with LNG imports from Africa and with the Germans expressing a willingness to invest in energy projects. Visiting Nigeria German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his country was willing to invest in natural gas in Nigeria, the largest LNG, gas and oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa. Before meeting Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu the Chancellor had spoken of his nation requiring “considerable” amounts of natural gas.

   While Chancellor Scholz was in Nigeria and later travelling on to the West African nation of Ghana, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was visiting the East African country of Tanzania, an emerging LNG nation with a project being developed by energy majors. Chancellor Scholz also last year visited Senegal, where floating LNG projects are being development and spoke at the time of German investment in West Africa oil and gas.

Australia's Invictus Energy, is optimistic about the southern African nation of Zimbabwe becoming an oil and gas producer from onshore resources in the Cabora Bassa project in northern Zimbabwe.

The LNG carrier “Lobito” with 160,000 cubic metres capacity has just lifted the 400th cargo from the Soyo LNG export plant in Angola that has made the southwest African nation a key global supplier for the past 10 years and an example of how oil and gas and LNG can change lives in developing economies.

Expro Group Holdings, the global energy services provider, has been awarded a five-year well intervention and integrity contract with French major TotalEnergies in the East African nation of Uganda and covering the multi-well Tilenga project.

The East African nation of Tanzania said it was close to final agreement with a consortium comprising Shell, ExxonMobil and Norway’s Equinor along with several other licence partners in a $40 billion liquefied natural gas export project.

“The important negotiations with the government of Tanzania have concluded and the Host Government Agreement (HGA) and a Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) are expected to be signed soon,” said a statement from Shell’s office in the Tanzanian capital Dar Es Salam.

Charles Sangweni, the Chief Tanzanian government negotiator in the LNG talks, told local media that the main agreement had just to be approved by the Tanzanian Cabinet and Parliament and would involve total investments of $42Bln.

Sangweni, who is also Director General of the country’s Petroleum Upstream Regulatory Authority, said he hoped that the project’s first formal agreement could be signed before the end of July 2023.

Big step

“We are happy. It is a big step towards the implementation of the project although we still have a lot to do,” he added.

Tanzania's southern neighbour Mozambique became an LNG export in November 2022 with the start of a floating export project led by Italian major Eni while France's TotalEnergies is set to resume its onshore export development in the northeast Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado.

Shell operates Tanzania's Block 1 and Block 4, which hold 16 trillion cubic feet in estimated recoverable gas.

All three parties involved signed a framework agreement in June 2022 aimed at bringing closer the start of the project's construction.

Equinor and Shell, along with US major ExxonMobil and Pavilion Energy of Singapore, had previously discussed building the LNG export plant in the southern Lindi region of Tanzania.

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has said that the LNG project would play a crucial role in creating jobs and advancing economic developed not only in the Lindi and Mtwara regions but in the whole country.

Offshore blocks

Equinor has the operatorship of Tanzania's offshore Block 2, in which ExxonMobil also holds a stake and which is estimated to hold more than 20 Tcf of feed gas.

Equinor has said it also aimed initially to work on the LNG project with Shell, which operates Block 1 and Block 4.

Tanzania already uses some of its natural gas discoveries for power generation and to run manufacturing plants. It also plans to build a fertiliser plant.

The government has put the country's total estimated recoverable gas at close to 60 Tcf.

Analysts note that the development of Tanzania's offshore gas resources has been held up for years due to regulatory and political delays.

The other consortium partners are Indonesia’s MedcoEnergi and Pavilion along with Tanzania Petroleum Development Corp., the state-owned energy company.

Despite holding almost 9 percent of the world’s proven reserves of natural gas, Africa remains the most energy-poor continent while industries rely on expensive, inefficient and polluting sources of energy leaving hundreds of millions of households lacking modern energy access, according to a new International Gas Union report.

The East African nation of Tanzania said it signed a framework agreement with Norwegian energy major Equinor and UK-based Shell to intensify studies on a new LNG export project.

Golar LNG, which has an operated and owned fleet of 28 vessels, reported a more than four-fold increase in losses as it reorganized the business following the sale of the Hygo Energy stake and Golar LNG Partners to New York-based LNG-to-power firm New Fortress Energy.