New natural gas reserves found in Coast Region
 
2007-01-26 08:37:31
By Perege Gumbo

Fresh reserves of natural gas have been discovered at Mkuranga District in Coast Region.

Drilling and testing was undertaken by Maurel & Prom and the exploit was made known this week by Artumas Group.
Once mined, it would add to the current Songo Songo gas supplies and the Mnazi Bay gas reserves at Msimbati Peninsula.

Information from the site testifies that scientific tests suggested `presence of a considerable gas resource`.

But what makes the discovery unique was its stone-throwing location from the power hungry Dar es Salaam City, suggesting cheaper commercialization of the project.

Artumas Energy Tanzania statement says recent discovery could enable Tanzania address its chronic shortage of electricity generation capacity and supply surplus to other members of the East African integrated transmission grid.

The unearthing of the fresh gas pool has come in the wake of domestic power tariff hiking by 6 percent due to what has been explained by the Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) as rising overheads.

Tanzania has a total of installed power production capacity of 937 MW but during last year`s power crisis, only 487 MW was actually being produced due to drought that affected all hydro-power stations.

Expensive power from private sources, the Songas and the IPTL with installed generation capacities of 200 MW and 100MW respectively, partly minimized the hard times of the power shortage.

• SOURCE: Guardian