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East African Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop) has begun to line up suppliers and started the land acquisition process in Tanzania, ahead of construction of the 1,443km pipeline between Kabaale in Uganda and Tanga port in Tanzania.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan has made sweeping changes to the leadership of Tanzania’s energy sector in the post-Magufuli period but macroeconomic, political and legislative obstacles to deeper change will remain for some time, writes Dan Marks.

Alongside the change of energy minister in mid-September, President Samia Suhulu Hassan replaced the board and senior leadership of Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco). The national utility’s new managing director Maharage Chande previously worked at MultiChoice Africa, which owns cable TV channel DStv, where he was Tanzania managing director and then regional managing director for East and West Africa.

The Rwandan deployment has changed the course of the Mozambique government’s battle against Islamist insurgents. This opens the way for a crucial resumption of big gas projects in Cabo Delgado, but questions remain about the Rwandan deployment’s funding, President Kagame’s strategic goals and whether the insurgency is really beaten, writes Marc Howard

Tanzania-focused, AIM-listed Helium One on 19 August announced the start of exploration drilling at Tai-2, its second exploration well on the Tai prospect in the Rukwa Basin. 

London AIM-listed Scirocco Energy and Aminex in mid-August reported that their Ruvuma joint venture – now led by ARA Petroleum Tanzania (APT), following a farm-out by Aminex – had received Ministry of Energy approval to extend its production-sharing agreement (PSA) for another two years from 15 August.

El Sewedy Electric Company chief executive Ahmed El Sewedy travelled to Dar es Salaam in mid-August to lobby President Samia Suluhu Hassan for a possible extension of the June 2022 completion date for the Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project. The Egyptian entrepreneur also mooted possible investments elsewhere in the country.

Six independent power producers (IPPs) selected in a tender last year have been asked to extend their bids once again, this time to October. They had previously been asked to extend them to the end of June. The IPPs had bid prices of only $0.034-38/kWh for wind and solar PV projects with combined capacity of 350MW.

At a meeting between East African Community energy ministers on 12-13 June, energy minister Medard Kalemani said work on the 2.1GW Julius Nyerere dam is 52% complete while work on the 80MW Rusumo Falls hydropower project is 80% complete.

The Tanzanian government is pressing ahead with large-scale renewable energy projects, in particular the controversial 2.1GW Julius Nyerere dam, alongside a state-owned solar project and donor-backed transmission and distribution initiatives.

Tanzania-focused Wentworth Resources recorded strong natural gas demand in the first half of 2021 and increased its average production guidance for 2021 to 70-80 mcf/d from 65-75 mcf/d.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) on 28 May signed loan agreements with the Tanzanian government worth $140m for the construction of the 50MW Malagarasi hydropower plant. The AfDB has agreed a $120m sovereign loan, with the remaining $20m provided by the AfDB-administered Africa Growing Together Fund.

The World Bank Group’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) said on 31 May that a case brought by Symbion Power Tanzania Ltd (SPTL) and its owners Lord Richard Westbury and Paul Hinks against the Tanzanian government had been dropped. The end of the arbitration, which was registered on 31 May 2019, is another indication that the Tanzanian government is moving to settle high-profile disputes with international companies.

German development bank KfW has said the Kikagati hydropower plant on the Kagera River, on the border between Uganda and Tanzania, is due online by year-end. KfW has provided a $12.3m tariff top-up for the project through its Global Energy Transfer Feed in Tariff programme that launched in Uganda in 2013 AE 388/7.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s unexpected leadership in Tanzania has given rise to optimism about prospective big projects involving international investors and regional partners. Her first, widely-observed foreign visit, on 11 April, was to the signing in Entebbe of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop)’s shareholders, tariff and transportation agreements, with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni also present.