A Paris based team of oil experts arrived in Tanzania last week to discuss proposed new developments on Uganda-Tanzania oil Pipeline project.

According to state owned Daily News, the team which departed from the country met with Tanzania’s officials to deliberate on the tax modalities and benefits for the hosting country in the pipeline deal.

Minister for Energy and Minerals, Prof Sospeter Muhongo said the presence of French experts came at the right time when Uganda had just granted oil production licences to Tullow Oil and Total.

“Uganda has just issued extraction licences to international oil marketing companies, signifying the project is at a good stage of its implementation,” Prof Mhongo said during a live broadcast on Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation (TBC).

Muhongo said some 100,000 new jobs are expected to be created and more opportunities await Tanzanians and the East African Community (EAC) member states to benefit. “Out of the expected 1,410km, about 1,100kmlong pipeline will be in Tanzania.

DR Congo is expected to start export of crude oil at 30,000 barrels a day and projects to rise to 100,000 barrels at its full capacity production.

“This is very profitable for Tanzania considering we’re bordering DR Congo through Lake Tanganyika” We expect also the oil and gas reserves in the lake Tanganyika can be exported via the pipeline,” Muhongo noted.

The minister also outlined a grand plan to train local Tanzanians in the oil and gas sector, saying they expect the country to become the regional hub of oil and gas experts in 10 years.

Muhongo said as it stands now, Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) had about 300 experts and the targets were to get 500 experts.

“There are more efforts being undertaken by the government and development partners including China and Norway. We expect to have 1,000 experts in ten years from now. We want our experts to work all across the region providing oil and gas expertise,” he said.

Source: Daily News