Tanzania has established a link with Zambia to help resolve its electricity crisis, the country’s prime minister said at the International Energy Week conference in Singapore on Monday.
“We have some interconnectors with our neighbours, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya and now we are pulling up an interconnector with Zambia, which will help us to assist our neighbour in Zambia who is facing a deadly drought,” said Doto Biteko, who is also the energy minister.
At the meeting, he said that the development of the grid connection began last month and would take 36 months.
Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia announced in 2014 that they would spend $1.4 billion by 2018 to connect the grid and create a regional energy pool for the electricity market.
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Regarding the $42 billion development of Tanzania’s LNG export facility, Biteko said the government was negotiating with the project’s partners and operators to reach an agreement, but did not give a date for when the meeting would end.
Tanzania’s LNG project was put on hold last year because the government proposed changes to the financing agreement. A government spokesman said the proposed revisions to the government’s host contract were designed to ensure both sides received equal benefits throughout the deal.
Equinor and Shell are working partners, while ExxonMobil, Pavilion Energy, Medco Energi and Tanzania’s oil company TPDC are partners.
