In a statement, Kigoma North lawmaker who is also Deputy Leader of the official opposition in Parliament, Zitto Kabwe, said the deal is part of results from negotiations conducted with Dutch Deputy Prime Minister, Maxime Verhagen in Amsterdam on Tuesday.
"The Deputy Prime Minister assured us of the readiness of his government to support us in developing our natural gas sub-sector especially through human resources development," Mr Kabwe said in the statement.
The idea of establishing the scholarship programme was further discussed by the lawmakers when they visited Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Mr Verhagen suggested that Tanzania uses its natural gas reserves towards infrastructure development and cutting down on the national debt for the benefit of the future generation.
The Netherlands which largely lies below the sea level, has huge natural gas reserves such that it is sometimes referred to as 'Gas Hub' of Europe with well developed ports for liquefied natural gas (LNG) handling like Amsterdam.
Kabwe who is leading the delegations which also comprises Korogwe Member of Parliament, Yusuph Nasir, Kigoma South MP, David Kafulila and Morogoro Special Seats MP, Sarah Msafiri, said the study tour is meant to learn best practices from the Netherlands in oil and gas sector.
The Dutch who earn 85 per cent of their revenue from Groningen oil and gas field of which 45 per cent comes from oil and gas companies including Shell, ExxonMobil, Stateoil and state gas company, EBN, do not use production sharing agreement (PSAs) like Tanzania in licensing oil and gas firms.
"In all licences except in old ones the state has shares and participates in companies," the statement noted, saying under PSAs the biggest advantage is that the state retains the resource.
Tanzania has a proven natural gas reserve of close to 19 trillion cubic feet (TCF) with the recent discoveries from five wells owned by BritishGas in partnership with Ophir, Statoil discoveries, Songosongo and Mnazi Bay, to mention but a few.
Source:allAfrica.com
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