Tanzania will exceed its existing supply of gas in the next two years as demand is currently at 80Mmscf/d, as the country still witness chronic power shortages Wentworth Resources revealed.

According to the company, demand is expected to rise to 120Mmscf/d in 2017 with customers mainly being industrial users.

Tanzania at present has two gas processing facilities; the Gas Processing plant at Madimba with the capacity of about 210Mmscf/d and the Songo Songo gas processing facility with capacity of about 140Mmscf/d, delivered by a 36” gas line and 16” gas line respectively.

The Mnazi Bay Joint Venture which involves Maurel et Prom (Operator), Wentworth Resources and TPDC is the only supplier of gas in the country, supplying about 130Mmscf/d even though production capacities are anticipated to increase to 70-80Mmscf/d by Q1 ending and continue till 2017.

Gas from Mnazi Bay is presently used to fire the Kinyerezi-1 power generation plant with a 150 MW production capacity.

Meanwhile, the capacity of the Songas processing plant was augmented to 105Mmscfd, 35Mmscfd beyond the design capacity and 15Mmscfd on top of the designed capacity. So therefore, the Songas facilities are currently at their limits and cannot boost output without significant investments, Oil News Kenya reports.

Anita Fatunji