The Licensing Rounds

=The First Licensing Round (2001)= The first licensing round was announced in June 2000 and closed on 19th April 2001. It was conducted in London, UK. Six off-shore licensing blocks were auctioned for water depths of between 200 and 2000 metres but only one bid from Petrobras was received. Petrobras was awarded a PSA for Block 5.

=The Second Licensing Round (2002)= The second licensing round was conducted in Houston, Texas, USA. It commenced on 3rd June 2001 and closed on 5th July 2002. In the second licensing round, eleven off-shore blocks were offered for water depths of between 200 and 2000 metres, including one in shallow waters south of Zanzibar and six in deep waters off the Pemba and Zanzibar islands. The round covered a total of 114,123 sq km. On the closing day, two separate bids were received from Shell International and Global Resources. Both companies had bid for the same blocks 9-12. A technical committee comprising officials of the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) and the Tanzanian Ministry of Energy and Minerals found the bid by Global Resources to be incompetent as “it provided an inadequate work program, did not provide evidence of financial capability, and neither the experience in exploration in the deep-sea areas.” According to the committee, only the bid by Shell met the basic requirement of the bidding instruction. Consequently, Blocks 9-12 were awarded to Shell International.

=The Third Licensing Round (2005)= The opening of the third round was announced in May 2004 and closed in May 2005. The round took place in Denver, Colorado, USA and covered a total of 71,103 sq km. Seven licensing blocks were auctioned in water depths between 200 – 2000m and three blocks (1, 2 and 6) were awarded. Block 1 was awarded to Ophir Energy, Block 2 to Statoil and Block 6 to Petrobras.



=Direct Award of Off-shore Blocks 3 and 4= In April 2006, the licensing blocks 3 and 4 were directly awarded to Ophir Energy by the Tanzania Government.



=Limited Tendering for Blocks 7 and 8= In July 2006, the Tanzania Government announced limited tendering for what were the two remaining blocks at that time. On 19 January 2007, licensing Block 7 was awarded to Dominion Petroleum and Block 8 to Petrobras.

=The Fourth Licensing Round= The fourth licensing round was officially launched on 25 October 2013 during the 2nd Tanzanian Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, after being delayed since September 2012, while awaiting the approval of the new National Natural Gas Policy. The licensing round closed on 15 May 2014. The round covered the on-shore North Lake Tanganyika block and seven off-shore blocks in waters of between 2,000m and 3,000m depth. The blocks vary in size from 2,545 km2 to over 3,600 km2 and lie east of and near areas which have already been found to be prospective. Two more blocks were reserved for the TPDC. The TPDC will be looking for strategic partners to explore the reserved blocks via a competitive process. Out of the available blocks, four received bids: Block 2A was bid for by Mubadala Petroleum; Block 3A was bid for by China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC Ltd), and there was a joint bid by Statoil and ExxonMobil; Block 3B received a bid from Gazprom; and the North Lake Tanganyika block was bid for by Ras Al Khaimah Gas LLC (Rakgas). Mubadala Petroleum, Statoil, ExxonMobil and Rakgas already hold interests in Tanzania. Four off-shore blocks, 4A, 4B, 5A and 5B, did not attract any bid. Britain’s BG Group and Ophir Energy, which have been at the forefront of exploration in Tanzania, did not submit any bids for the blocks on offer. The submitted bid documents are being evaluated by the TPDC to ensure they comply with the terms and conditions set by the Tanzania Government. The announcement of the bid winners is expected to immediately follow this process. Successful bidders will then be invited to negotiate for Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) with the TPDC and the Tanzania Government.



=References=