THE fourth licensing round for the country's eight oil and gas blocks was launched in Dar es Salaam last Friday.
Seven deep offshore oil and gas blocks in the South Eastern regions of Lindi and Mtwara and one in the North Lake Tanganyika were put on offer for successful bidders. The deep offshore blocks are located in water depths of 2,000 to 3,000 metres.
The Lake Tanganyika North Block is located in water depth of up to 1,500m.
This round was delayed since September 2012 to wait for the new Natural Gas Policy of 2013 which was approved a couple of days before the launch.
But while the international oil and gas companies are vying to invest in the lucrative but expensive gas and oil industry, concerns are rife over local ownership of a stake in the newly discovered wealth. The government is keen to dispel fears among the people that the nation will not gain from the new found wealth.
The message it wants to convey is the government is working in the best interest of the nation and the people in managing the new gas bonanza.
The government says new investments in the blocks will be under new production sharing contracts where the state will take up to 75 per cent.
"The production-sharing formula will either be 35 per cent to investors and 65 per cent to the government or 25 per cent to them and 75 per cent to us," President Jakaya Kikwete said at the launching ceremony.
The majority shares of the state in the new investments will be under the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) on behalf of the people.
It is expected that the corporation will later on be restructured to help the country regulate better its vast natural gas discoveries and eventually will be split into two separate bodies - a regulator and a publicly-owned commercial oil company.
The latter will then sell the shares to Tanzanians through an Initial Public Offer (IPO). "We will look at the possibility of selling TPDC's shares in production-sharing agreements through initial public offers (IPOs) in the future to enable more Tanzanians to participate in the oil and gas industry," said Mr Kikwete.
