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| Tanzania's Oil Blocks |
Tanzania will hold an oil exploration licensing round for 16 offshore
blocks starting in September this year, a principal geologist at the state-run
Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation said on Tuesday.
Meshack Kagya told an energy conference in Nairobi that details of the
Tanzanian plan would be unveiled next month, with the process expected to close
in 2013.
He said there were an additional five onshore blocks for licensing that
would not be part of the round scheduled for September.
"These will be separate from the deep sea (blocks). I am not sure
of the timeline," Kagya told reporters.
The offshore blocks had over 34,000 km of two dimensional seismic data
and over 8,000 square km of three dimensional data. The blocks are in waters
with depths ranging from 1,500 metres to 3,000 metres.
East Africa has been a focus for exploration since substantial deposits
of crude were found in Uganda in 2006. London-listed Tullow Oil expects to
start production there in late 2012.
Tullow said on Monday that it had also struck 20 metres of light, waxy
crude after drilling its first well in Kenya's arid north, sending its shares
higher.
Norwegian oil firm Statoil has said its Tanzanian gas discovery
announced last month, the biggest ever made in the country, held up to 5
trillion cubic feet of gas, or about 891 million barrels of oil equivalent (BoE)
in proven reserves.
"They are securing the sites for LNG processing in Mtwara region
for LNG for export and for domestic markets," Kagya said.
He said that the government was in the process of setting up a second
pipeline to add to an existing one joining the Songo Songo gas field to Dar es
Salaam.
Statoil says it has to weigh its options before it decides what type of
development to invest in, but proximity to the Asian energy market makes an LNG
development plausible.
Africa-focused oil and gas firm Ophir Energy Plc and its partner BG
Group have made significant gas finds.
The pair said on Monday they had discovered more gas than estimated off
the coast of Tanzania, adding an estimated 3.4 trillion cubic feet (TCF) in
recoverable reserves from the Jordari-1 well in block 1, 55 percent more than
initially expected.
Kagya said Tanzania's natural gas estimates stood at more than 10 trillion
cubic feet following recent discoveries.
Tanzania already uses some of its gas to produce electricity and
supplies the gas to 37 institutions and industries.
Source: The Reuters,af.reuters.com, reported by George Obulutsa in Nairobi
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