Tanzania wants to sign agreements with companies led by Norwegian Equinor and Royal Dutch Shell within six months, a step by which the African country wants to reinvigorate a $30 billion natural gas project. This was reported by Bloomberg News Agency on Friday on the basis of statements by the country’s Energy Minister.

The so-called Host Government Agreement will outline the commercial, legal and technical aspects of the LNG project, but a possible investment decision may already fall before this agreement is reached, according to minister January Makamba.

Tanzania, which has an estimated 60 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, needs to accelerate its development as pressure increases to switch to cleaner energy. Together with neighbouring country Mozambique, where TotalEnergies is one of the companies that wants to develop gas projects worth more than $ 50 billion, the two countries have enough gas to meet global demand for the next decade.

Other partners that may be participating in the project around an LNG terminal in southern Tanzania include Exxon Mobil, UK based Ophir Energy and Singapore’s Pavilion Energy.