‘Drilling in Lake Tanganyika failed’
Dar es Salaam. The government yesterday explained why drilling in Lake Tanganyika failed despite good prospects for oil.
Energy deputy minister Stephen Byabato, who responding to questions in Parliament, said technical surveys had revealed the possibility of finding petroleum resources in the lake but an investor could not drill due to challenges of lake depth and financial difficulties.
“Beach Petroleum, which was conducting exploration in collaboration with the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC), failed to transport its drilling rig due to high depth of the lake and of course financial challenges,” said Mr Byabato.
The company conducted exploration between 2010 and 2017 but after encountering the challenges, it returned the block to the government.
“The government has not discovered petroleum or natural gas but it continues to evaluate data,” he said.
In the main question in the National Assembly, Mr Kilumbe Ng’enda (Kigoma Urban-CCM) wanted to know the results of the exploration activities and the plans ahead about the extractive sector in the lake.
He also asked what the government was doing to get another investor to replace Beach Petroleum which surrendered the block since 2017.
However, Mr Byabato said the government had not auctioned the block since 2017 because the review of contracts in the extractive industry was ongoing.
“Now that the review has almost completed, the government is ready to move ahead with the process to allow exploration. I can assure that the government is in the final stages to prepare the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) review report and there after we can issue tender for the block,” said Mr Byabato.
In a supplementary question, Ms Cecilia Paresso (Special Seats-Chadema) asked the results of oil exploration in the Eyasi-Wembere block.
Mr Byabato responded that the exploration was still ongoing.
