In Tanzania, PanAfrican Energy has announced that it plans to commission four wells, three of which were initially postponed.

The company said the commissioning of the wells will significantly boost their ability to produce natural gas as it took 178 days to renovate three wells and drilling a new one.

According to Onestus Mujemula, PanAfrican Energy’s operational engineer, the three wells that were suspended under the project includes offshore wells SS5, SS9 and SS7. He added that the project also included the drilling of a new offshore well SS12 which is to have a per day production capacity of 35 million cubic feet. “All the work overs and the new well were completed with a gas tight premium production casing and the production strings were completed with gas tight tread chrome tubing,” he said.

PanAfrican Energy officials have said that the conclusion of the offshore capital programme on February 10 2016 will bring the overall number of functioning wells to eight from the existing five. This is planned to resolve the operational necessities to guarantee the continuous provision of gas volumes to the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC).

“When the current repair and drilling is over we expect the daily gas volumes to rise from the pre-campaign work overs and drilling of 85 million to nearly 180 million cubic feet. Initially we had budgeted that the drilling and work over on all the four wells cost some $91 million but these costs have been cut down to $67.5 million,” Mujemula told the Citizen.

Anita Fatunji