Tanzania Field 'to Start up Early April'
UK explorer Aminex has said that its final integrity testing of the Kiliwani North-1 well near Tanzania’s Songo Songo island has been completed, that a wellhead control panel has been installed, that all required work prior to gas production will shortly be complete, and that it expects start up in early April. "Aminex looks forward to the commencement of gas production and revenues from Kiliwani North," added CEO Jay Bhattacherjee on March 15.
State-owned Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) has provided a revised work schedule and informed Aminex that the commissioning of the Songo Songo Island gas plant is expected to begin in early April, noted Aminex. All KN-1 gas will be sold to TPDC at wellhead at $3 per mn Btu and will be later piped to the capital Dar es Salaam and sold into the local market.
The Kiliwani North field has been independently ascribed with 28bn ft3 gross contingent (2C) resource, and the KN-1 well tested at 40mn ft3/d. Licensees are the operator Aminex 55.575%, Abu Dhabi-based RAK Gas 23.75%, UK Solo Oil 6.175%, Australia’s Bounty Oil & Gas 9.05% and TPDC 5%. Solo’s stake will shortly increase to 10%, leaving Aminex with 51.75%. Solo too issued a March 15 statement looking forward to the field’s start-up.
Songo Songo is midway along a $1.4bn, 500-km pipeline system finalised last year from Dar es Salaam south to near the border with Mozambique, where the Maurel & Prom-operated 756-km2 Mnazi Bay concession is located just inside Tanzania. The French operator has a 48% interest, Canada-registered Wentworth Resources a 32% interest and TPDC a 20% interest in that concession with a gas sales agreement in place until October 2031.
In a presentation published on March 15, Wentworth said it expects Mnazi Bay production ramping up into the newly installed pipeline at volumes expected to reach between 70mn and 80mn ft3/d by the end of this month. It said payments are “regularly received on time and in full for gas delivered”.
Wentworth said that immediate demand for Mnazi Bay gas is coming from existing power plants, with demand from existing and new plants expected to reach 120mn ft3/d in 2017, with gas demand expected to outstrip Mnazi Bay supply in 2018.
Mnazi Bay gas, inclusive of gas transportation costs to the capital, is expected to reduce the average cost of power generation in the country from $0.20 per kilowatt-hour to $0.08/kWh, said Wentworth – noting the current selling price $0.16/kWh.
Mark Smedley