Three PSA's signed by majors in Tanzania, so hopefully we could...

Three PSA's signed by majors in Tanzania, so hopefully we could see Jacka's Ruhuhu basin PSA signed real soon.

Here's the article:

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Three major firms join search for oil, gas

Tuesday, 24 January 2012 22:52
By Felix Lazaro
The Citizen Reporter
Dar es Salaam.

The Tanzanian government signed partnership sharing agreements (PSAs) with three major fuel exploration companies yesterday, raising hopes of the country’s economic fortunes being boosted immensely if the venture yields positive results.

The minister for Energy and Minerals, Mr William Ngeleja, said the firms - Petrobras, Motherland Industries and Heritage Rukwa from Brazil, India and the UK, respectively - would prospect for gas and oil reserves in the country for 11 years.

“The signing of three PSAs is an important milestone towards exploration of hydrocarbons in Tanzania and East Africa at large,” he said.According to the PSAs, Petrobras Tanzania Ltd would undertake activities in Block-8 deep offshore. Motherland and Heritage would focus on the Malagarasi and Kyela basins, respectively.

The agreement is for a period of 11 years with an option of “back-off at each stage and a mandatory surrender of 50 per cent at the end of each period,” Mr Ngeleja explained.

The minister added that recent oil discoveries in both deep-sea and inland rift basins in Angola, Mozambique, Ghana, Uganda and Sudan have brought optimism to Tanzania which has similar geology.“The PSAs we have signed is a testimony to that effect,” Mr Ngeleja said.Apart from Petrobras, the other two firms are starting activities for the first time in Tanzania. Heritage is the firm that discovered oil in Uganda.

The agreements signed yesterday bring to 28, the number of exploration licences in Tanzania, while the number of exploration companies operating in the country is 18 - the highest since exploration of oil and gas started in 1950.
In an interview with The Citizen, Motherland general manager Virendra Kumar Sood said, some of the areas to be explored are not easily accessible because of poor infrastructure, citing Malaragasi Basin where injection of much funds to facilitate transport and communication would be pertinent.

“I will have to invest more to make Malagarasi Basin easily reachable. Initial investment during exploration will be about Sh1.6 million. After confirming the oil availability, I will have to invest about $400million (Sh640 billion) to start extraction,” said Mr Sood.

In his remarks during the signing the PSA, Petrobras managing director Samuel Bastos de Miranda said should oil and gas be discovered, Tanzania’s economic and social sectors would be greatly transformed, and reduction of unemployment would be among the major benefits.

“We will give employment opportunity to Tanzanians. To date, Petrobrass has employed about 40 Tanzanians in fields of law, accounting, engineering, procurement and muman resources. This is to encourage local manpower in transforming their national economy,” he said.

The discovery of the fuel under the current government strategy, which accommodates huge investment in natural gas sector in anticipation of major commercial discoveries in the next five years, would make Tanzania one of the gas and oil giants in the region.

“The success of this exploration will transform Tanzania into a gas and oil province in the region,” said Heritage-Rukwa general manager, Julian Heawood, who added that from his company’s experience in Uganda oil exploration, the prospects for finding oil reserves in Tanzania were high.

Heritage Rukwa which is one of the companies that explored oil in Uganda is confident that, from the nature of geological features in the Albert Basin in Uganda, it is possible to find oil in Kyela Basin as the two areas share the same features.

The companies stressed that environmental assessment would precede the envisaged explorations.
“Environmental assessment will take six months, so we will have to wait until it is done, and we a re given the go-ahead to embark on exploration,” said Mr Sood.

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