Tanzania College of Business Education (CBE) announced it will reform metrology program to include Oil and gas professional training in its bid to prepare citizenry to tap in the budding oil and gas sector.

The East African nation is estimated to be sitting on total of about 60 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of recoverable natural gas reserves following a new discovery of an additional 2.17 tcf onshore near the capital Dar es Salaam in February 2016.

The onshore reserves were found at a field licensed to the United Arab Emirates’ Dodsal Group located at Ruvu basin in Coast region.

Tanzania also has partnered with Uganda to route its crude to it’s Northeastern Port of Tanga in a deal expected to provide over 15000 employment opportunities.

Industry analysts say the combination of both crude oil market, and huge gas reserves positions the nation as a new hotspot in hydrocarbon business.

Speaking at the World Metrology day in Dar es Salaam, the CBE Rector, Prof Emanuel Mjema, said the oil and gas courses would provide the country with enough experts in measuring natural resources and help the nation to tap into the opportunities the sector presents.

“The subject of oil and gas has been added in the metrology course after the discovery of natural gas,….the industrial products, which may be meant for exports should be tested and evaluated using measuring instruments of guaranteed accuracy,” he said.

Tanzania recently announced that there are plans to build a pipeline to supply natural gas to neighbouring Uganda as it looks to export some of the huge offshore gas reserves discovered in recent years.

“Several east African countries have asked to buy gas from Tanzania… to start with, the (Tanzanian) government plans to build a gas pipeline to Uganda,” Tanzania’s energy and minerals ministry said in a statement.

Major operators in Tanzania’s Kiliwani North Development gas project, Solo Oil plc and Aminex plc, announced that first gas production was achieved from the Kiliwani North gas well in April 2016.

Solo said gas was expected to be delivered to the gas to the newly built Songo Songo processing plant which is tied into the main national pipeline infrastructure to the local Tanzanian market.