By Janeth Mesomapya

Prime Minister, the Honorable Kassim Majaliwa Majaliwa, has urged the Petroleum Upstream Regulatory Authority (PURA) to accelerate the process of licensing round for auctioning petroleum exploration blocks in the country.

Hon. Majaliwa made the remarks on September 20, 2023, during his visit to the PURA booth at an ongoing two-day Tanzania Energy Congress at the Julius Nyerere International Convention Center in Dar es Salaam.

"I urge you to speed up the process of auctioning our blocks so that we can attract investors in the exploration and production of oil and gas in the country for the benefit of our nation," he added.

Giving a brief report to the Prime Minister, PURA's Director General, Engineer Charles Sangweni, said that the Authority is continuing with the initial preparations for the fifth licensing round of auctioning both onshore and offshore exploration blocks in order to attract more investors.

He further stated that, along with these preparations, PURA is currently demarcating the blocks to be auctioned and preparing data packages for each block.

" So far 26 blocks have been earmarked to feature in the proposal for the licencing round, 15 of which are onshore and 11 offshore," Eng. Sangweni elaborated.

He also noted that the government expects to launch the Licensing Round between December 2023 and March 2024 after completing the ongoing preparatory activities.

It is reported that the process of auctioning the blocks is estimated to cost a total of 3.5 billion Tanzanian Shillings. Additionally, for the fiscal year 2023/24, the Government, through PURA, has allocated 500 million Tanzanian Shillings for the initial preparatory work for the auction.