Tanzania Plans to Commission Natural Gas Plant by 2025

(Bloomberg) -- Tanzania, which has at least 57 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, plans to commission a plant by 2025 to process as much as 11.1 trillion cubic feet.

The Ministry of Energy’s plan estimates that the East African nation can recover as much as 70 percent of the resource. It also projects total demand at 32.5 trillion cubic feet over three decades, with 8.8 trillion cubic feet going to power generation, according to a document handed to reporters in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.

Tanzania utilizes about 33 billion cubic feet each year to generate 711 megawatts of electricity, according to the document. The nation plans to export at least 3.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to East and Southern Africa in the 30 years through 2045 as global prices drop.

“Declining global prices mean regional markets maybe be a better option to monetize the resource,” according to the plan.

Global production of natural gas is forecast to grow 7.6 percent each year to reach 500 million tons per year in 2030, according to the International Gas Union.

“Tanzania should not necessarily start allocating gas ratios as that might encourage the growth of unsustainable industries,” Paul Hogarth, an upstream commercial team leader at London-based BG Group said at a conference in Dar es Salaam Wednesday.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joseph Burite in Dar es Salaam at jburite@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Eric Ombok, Helen Nyambura-Mwaura