TANZANIA Who will be new John Magufuli’s new LNG negotiator?

摘要

The Tanzanian president John Magufuli is keen to bring in fresh blood to grain traction on the country’s LNG project on blocks 1, 2 and 4. The head of E&P at the state-owned oil firm TPDC, Kelvin Komba could become the new go-between for dealings with Shell and Equinor. Sitting on reserves of 36 trillion cubic feet of gas, the two majors are waiting on Magufuli, whose administration has consistently expressed its desire to renegotiate the oil firms’ contracts. Komba had been suspended from his duties between 2016 and 2019 along with the TPDC boss, James Mataragio after facing accusations of corruption. Both were subsequently cleared of their charges and reinstated to their former positions at the company. In order to make progress on the project to develop liquefied natural gas and build a liquefaction train facility in the Lindi province, Magufuli had already appointed TPDC executive Norbert Kahyoza as the main negotiator in April last year. With the elections approaching, scheduled for this year, the president wants to bring in new intermediaries to secure a deal before he begins campaigning.