Dar es Salaam. Good morning! The Chanzo is here with a rundown of major news stories reported in Tanzania on Monday, November 8, 2021.
Tanzania resumes talks on Sh6.9 trillion LNG project
Minister for Energy January Makamba said on Monday that the government has resumed negotiations with energy companies over the construction of an estimated Sh6.9 trillion (about $30 billion) liquefied natural gas (LNG) project.
Mr Makamba’s announcement comes hardly a week after one of the energy companies that have a stake in the project Norway’s Equinor EQNR.OL, saying 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,” Mr Makamba said in a Twitter post. “We’re confident that a final investment decision will come sooner than is traditionally the case.”
Equinor told the energy website Nasdaq last week that 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,” Nasdaq quoted an Equinor spokesperson as saying.
A $30 billion price tag had been communicated by the companies some years ago, but Equinor does not yet have a revised estimate, according to the website.
Equinor operates Tanzania’s Block 2, in which ExxonMobil XOM.N 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 RDSa.L, which operates Block 1 and Block 4 off Tanzania, with 16 trillion cubic feet in estimated recoverable gas.
UNIDO will use waste to produce 1.4 MWh of electricity to power Mafia
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has launched an initiative to convert agroindustrial waste into energy to meet Tanzania’s population electricity needs, a statement released on Monday said.
The project is being implemented on the island of Mafia, off the coast of the Pwani region, and it is expected to produce 1,400 kWh of electricity from renewable sources.
Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) estimates the electricity needs of Mafia Island is at 2,200 kWh. Currently, the 60,000 residents of Mafia meet a large part of this need (2,180 kWh) with generators, which emit carbon dioxide (CO2), according to the statement.
Titled “Promotion of Waste-to-Energy (WtE) Applications in Tanzania’s Agro-Industries,” the project seeks to improve the electricity supply on Mafia Island from renewable energy sources (biomass and biogas).
Financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), an international financial organization that provides grants for projects related to biodiversity and climate change, the initiative’s objective is to produce 1,400 kWh of electricity per hour.
It is expected that 1,054,341 tons of CO2 equivalent will be avoided with the implementation of the agro-industrial waste-to-energy project on the island of Mafia.
“Agro-industry was chosen because of its rapid scaling up and its potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions,” the statement quoted UNIDO’s national project coordinator for energy and environment Robert Washija as saying.
GEF already supports Kisiwani Farming, a Tanzanian company using coconut oil plantation residues to produce electricity through modular thermal gasification and to strengthen the power supply system in Mafia.
“The company has 2700 hectares of plantations in Mafia, whose waste products can be used to produce small amounts of green energy,” says Washija, according to the statement.
According to UNIDO, more than $4 million of the $5.277 million needed for the project has already been released.
This is it for today and we hope you enjoyed our briefing. Please consider subscribing to our newsletter (see below) or following us on Twitter (here) as that is the best way to make sure you do not miss any of these briefings. And in case you have any questions or comments, please consider dropping a word to our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
