Wednesday, March 25, 2015

MTWARA GAS


Mtwara region is one of Tanzania's 30 administrative regions. The regional capital is the municipality of Mtwara. According to the 2012 national census  the region had a population of 1,270,854, which was lower than the pre-census projection of 1, 374, 767.It was also the fourteenth most densely populated region with 76 people per square kilometer.
Development of the Mtwara Region has been constrained by the lack of highway and energy infrastructures. The Dar es Salaam-Kibiti-Lindi-Mtwara road has been improved by the completion of the Mkapa Bridge over the Rufiji River.
 Mnazi Bay gas promises to provide reliable and adequate electricity for powering industrial and commercial activities in the region. To address the benefits, the Mtwara gas results into
 Creating employment opportunity to 10,000 Tanzanian in 2025, this is the most benefit, but also to direct consumer of gas in household
Improvements of infrastructures such new road from Mtwara harbor, Railways, Airports and markets base1
The project brought a lot of challenges to surrounding communities and environmental in general. Some challenges of Mtwara Gas in relation to the economic benefit of the Nation and social welfare of the people are,
·         The lack of developed domestic market as the condition to establish sustainable national economy based on natural resource exploitation
·         The lack of requisite knowledge on successful exploitation of Natural resources and manage the flow of their benefits
·         The lack of institutional development this pertains to the capability of institutions to organize themselves in structures, working procedures and human resources to develop competency over time to manage, regulate and underpin the socioeconomic transformation.
·         Organizations responsible for regulating the Oil and Gas Industry, for Enforcement of contracts and property rights, for regulating banks and the financial Services sector, for managing and/or controlling fiscal and monetary resources and Policies, for regulating capital markets, and for protecting the environment, all need to develop institutional capacities commensurate with the challenges of performing their functions and delivering services efficiently to match the demands which will be imposed by the new and dominant gas economy.
·         The urgent requirement to build adequate physical economic services infrastructure to facilitate investments and reduce costs of doing business.
·         On May 2013 a gas riot happened where the residents were claiming there benefit on that project after they have expelled from their homes. One pregnant  woman was killed and many others died while others flew their homes
The collapse of the Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme in the early 1950s, dealt an economic blow to Tanzania’s southern region of Mtwara, but the discovery of off-shore natural gas has revived fortunes. Tanzania made significant discoveries of natural gas in 1974 at Songosongo in Lindi region. In the 1980s more finds were made at Mnazi Bay in Mtwara Region.
Tanzania’s total natural gas resource estimates now stand at about 50.5 trillion cubic feet (tcf), a figure that could double as new discoveries are made.
Francis Lupokela, the Public Relations Officer of Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC)  said 88% of Tanzania has gas, adding that more exploration activities are ongoing in Tanga, Morogoro and Kilimanjaro, Mtwara and Lindi. While these discoveries were made three decades ago infrastructural constraints, lack of capital for investment and political will have led to minimal utilization of the hydrocarbons. 
Tanzania is now putting more attention to gas to reinforce their foreign exchange earnings. This is a decimal shift from mining, agriculture, tourism and manufacturing which support other economic activities.
A predominantly rural region situated about 450 kilometers south of the Dar es Salaam; Mtwara is fast becoming an economic base for Tanzania with huge deposits of gas awaiting commercial production and the gas to be supplied countrywide.  
Exploration companies BG Group, Exxon Mobil, Statoil, Petrobras and others have littered the coastal region with huge foreign direct investment in excess of $300 million to fast track gas production.

Until 2011, gas deposits in Mtwara were estimated to be between 4 to 5tcf. In 2012, sizable discoveries made by BG Group, Statoil and Wentworth Resources at Mnazi Bay added to these reserves.
A natural gas processing plant is being built at Madimba in Mtwara by China Petroleum Engineers the project contractors, China Chemical Engineering Secondary Construction Corporation and Worley Parson the project management consultant.
 The processing plant will feed the main $1.22 billion 532-km Tanzania Natural Gas Pipeline that, together with gas from Songosongo through another processing facility at Samanga, will be transported to Dar es Salaam for further processing, storage and export.
The daily cost of a floating rig (drilling ship) used to drill in the deep sea is $1 million; one well takes about three months to be completed. The population in Mtwara is expected to grow higher by 2025 due to exploration of natural gas and improvement of infrastructures and creating employment opportunity to 10,000 Tanzanian this is the most benefit, but also to direct consumer of gas in household

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