By Nicholas Bariyo
Special to Dow Jones Newswires
Major new natural gas discoveries in Tanzania have pushed the
reserve estimates up to 28.7 trillion cubic feet from 10 trillion
cubic feet, Tanzania's deputy energy and minerals minister told Dow
Jones Newswires Wednesday.
These latest finds in the country's deep-water gas blocks are
attracting new interest from a host of international oil companies
especially as the bulk of the country's offshore and onshore gas
and oil blocks are yet to be explored, Stephen Masele said.
"We are encouraging companies to maintain the current momentum
in the gas and oil exploration sector," he said.
Last week's discovery of around 3 trillion cubic feet of gas
reserves in block 2 by Norwegian oil company Statoil ASA (STO) and
U.S.-based Exxon Mobil Corp.(XOM) has cut the risk.
Tanzania, which is slowly becoming a regional gas hub after a
flurry of discoveries, has around a dozen deepsea blocks that are
yet to be explored due to disputes over revenue sharing with the
semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that East Africa's coastal
region holds up to 441 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Tanzania is also trying to boost power generation at gas-fired
thermal plants as it seeks to wean its electricity sector away from
unreliable hydro power generation as well as the expensive
diesel-fired thermal plants.
In January, the state power utility raised electricity tariffs
by at least 40% citing higher generation costs due to the
acquisition of emergency diesel-fired thermal plants. The increase
mainly affected gold miners and other large industrial power
consumers.
Currently, Tanzania uses around 200 million cubic feet of gas a
day to run thermal plants, plans are underway to double gas
production by the end of 2013, according to Mr. Masele.
Other oil and gas exploration companies operating in Tanzania
include Canada's Orca Exploration Group Inc. (ORC.B.V), Australia's
Beach Energy Ltd. (BPT.AU), France's Total E&P Activities
Petrolieres and London-listed Aminex PLC (DOP.DB).
Write to Nicholas Bariyo at Nicholas.Bariyo@dowjones.com