After Mozambique OVL looks offshore Tanzania
OVL is excited about East Africa’s potential, not just for wildlife safaris, but oil and gas exploration too.
PETROWATCH learns OVL is gearing up to bid in Tanzania’s licensing round, due to be launched on October 25. This follows OVL’s landmark agreement last month to buy 10% of Anadarko’s 36.5% stake in the offshore Rovuma Area-1 gasfield in neighbouring Mozambique for $2.64bn, adding to a 10% stake it bought jointly with Oil India from Mumbai-based Videocon in June for $2.48bn.
OVL wants to sustain the momentum by bidding for seven deepwater Tanzanian blocks in this round. An OVL delegation led by general manager (business development) Arun Kumar will visit Dar es Salaam for the Second Tanzanian Oil and Gas Conference 2013 between October 23 and 25.
OVL will also hold direct talks with upstream regulator Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation about stakes in two other highly prospective deep offshore blocks 4/1B and 4/1C. “Tanzania likes India,” says OVL.
“We’ve been helping them with oil and gas projects since the 1970s.” ONGC worked on Tanzania’s most important hydrocarbon find, the offshore gasfield at Songo Songo, discovered in 1974.
OVL also helped re-evaluate onshore well MITA-1 in eastern Tanzania in 1997. But it’s only after the huge gas discovery in Mozambique that OVL began looking at East Africa seriously as an explorer.
“British Gas, Statoil, Petrobras and other big players are active in Tanzania,” adds OVL. “We also are keen on Tanzania, more so because it is politically stable.
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