TPDC unveils new round of exploration

Dar es Salaam. The Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) has announced the fourth round of exploration in the Indian Ocean and North Lake Tanganyika deep offshore oil blocks to firms wishing to explore for oil and more gas in the country.

The licensing that was to be done in September last year, but delayed due to deficiency in policies, will now be launched in October during the second Tanzania Oil and Gas Conference to be held in the city.

The licensing was delayed last year to give the government the chance to prepare and ratify the Natural Gas Policy, TPDC had said in a statement.

“Despite annulment of the licensing round, the Bid Round Data Package (BRDP) was issued to investors for review and purchase to allow potential investors an extended time to evaluate the technical data and assess the prospectivity of the nine blocks on offer,” TPDC had said in the statement last year.

The fourth licensing round will include the deep offshore sedimentary basins comprising seven deep sea blocks - each with an average size of 3,000 square kilometers located between 2,000 and 3,000 metres of water depths from 40°30’E to 41°40’E and 7°30’S to 9°00’S.

The licensing will also include the North Lake Tanganyika block located offshore in the western arm of the East African Rift System.

Lake Tanganyika is the world’s longest at 650 kilometers. It is also the second-deepest at (1,500 meters). The hydrocarbon data for the lake are those collected in the 1980s during the African Lakes Drilling Project, TPDC said in the statement.

Last year, the government had planned to auction nine deep offshore blocks (in the Indian Ocean), but it has decided to reserve two of the blocks (blocks 4/1B and 4/1C) for commercial use. “The government has reserved the two blocks where TPDC will be allowed to execute a different exploration approach using a strategic partner to be competitively sourced,” a statement published in the TPDC website at the weekend said.

The deep offshore blocks are located in the south of the country near the border with Mozambique. The two countries, together with Kenya and Uganda, have been a hotbed of hydrocarbon exploration in recent years after substantial deposits. Tanzania is yet to discover oil, but has proven recoverable natural gas resources, estimated at 40 trillion cubic feet.

When the government postponed the deep offshore auction, there were calls for a further ten-year delay from the opposition camp in Parliament and the parliamentary Energy and Minerals Committee to allow for more preparation of the legislative and regulatory regimes.