Tanzania is set to launch its fifth oil and gas licensing round in May, offering 26 exploration blocks. This will be the country’s first bidding round since 2014.
Charles Sangweni, director general of Tanzania’s Petroleum Upstream Regulatory Authority (PURA), confirmed the news in an interview with Bloomberg. He mentioned that the blocks have already been identified, and the necessary data is ready for the bidding process.
Of the 26 blocks, three are located in Lake Tanganyika, while the remaining ones are in the Indian Ocean.
The bid round will be officially announced at the Africa Energies Summit in London in mid-May.
Tanzania is believed to have substantial natural gas reserves, estimated at 57 trillion cubic feet. The country is also pursuing a $42-billion LNG export project, though progress has slowed. Last year, Shell and Equinor, two major oil companies, were still waiting for the final agreements that would allow them to begin developing the project.
The LNG project, which aims to link offshore natural gas discoveries with an export terminal, has been in the works for almost ten years.
Shell, after acquiring BG Group in 2016, took over operations of two offshore blocks, Block 1 and Block 4, in Tanzania. Along with its partners Medco Energi (Ophir Energy) and Pavilion Energy, the company has discovered 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in these blocks.
Equinor, meanwhile, has been exploring Block 2 offshore Tanzania since 2011. The company has made nine discoveries, with an estimated total of more than 20 trillion cubic feet of gas.
Last month, Tanzania’s Energy Minister Doto Biteko stated that the government expects to finalize negotiations with project developers on tax incentives by June this year.
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