25 September 2012 – The Citizen of Tanzania reports that a policy to guide Tanzania on how to develop the natural gas sector will be ready by the end of November 2012.
Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) director of marketing and investments, Joyce Kisamo, says that the policy is at the draft stage.“The ministry engaged Repoa (Policy Research for Development) as a consultant. The first draft of the policy should therefore be out soon. This draft will then be discussed by stakeholders in two weeks and I’m certain it will be ready towards end of this November.”
Tanzania is a new hotspot in hydrocarbon exploration, thanks to discoveries of major gas reserves. In June 2012, Tanzania nearly tripled its estimate of recoverable natural gas reserves up to 28.74 trillion cubic feet (tcf). This discovery forced the government to take the initiative to develop the Natural Gas Policy; the Natural Gas Utilisation Master Plan and the Natural Gas Act to guide the country in its endeavour to become a gas economy.
According to Kisamo, the three documents are in various stages of compilation, with the Natural Gas Act slated for completion by March 2013. “With the gas boom, we need these documents in place as soon as possible and the meeting is one of the ways by which we get views from stakeholders on how to develop the sector for the general good of the country.”
From utilisation point of view, Tanzania is already using some of its natural gas to produce electricity and to power industries. Between 420 and 450 MW of electricity in the country is generated by natural gas while the actual installed capacity for gas-to-electricity generation stands at 575.5MW.
