The Board of Directors of the Petroleum Upstream Regulatory Authority (PURA) and the Board of Directors of the Zanzibar Petroleum Regulatory Authority (ZPRA) met to assess the progress made on the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) entered between the two Authorities on February 2022.

The Boards convened on December 04, 2023, at the Julius Nyerere International Conference Center in Dar es Salaam. In attendance to the meeting were also management of PURA and ZPRA, and members of the Joint Technical Committee established to support the implementation of the MoU.

Speaking at the opening of the meeting, the PURA Board Chairman Mr. Halfani Halfani said that the Boards found it necessary to jointly evaluate the status of the implementation of the MoU and get to understand challenges hindering effective execution of the agreement.

“Today’s evaluation is crucial because it will enable the Boards of PURA and ZPRA to determine the level at which management of the two institutions has so far delivered on the MoU. This exercise will, without a doubt, enable the Boards to provide informed advice on beefing up the existing cooperation between our Authorities’’ added Mr. Halfani.

For his part, ZPRA Board Chairman, Mr. Ali Khalil Mirza stated that strengthened cooperation between PURA and ZPRA will accelerate petroleum exploration and production activities in Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar.

Mr. Mirza also pointed out that enhanced cooperation will enable the effective auctioning of petroleum exploration blocks in Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar.

The areas where PURA and ZPRA agreed to cooperate as per the MoU are sharing of experience on the development of upstream regulations, development of competence in PSA audit, sharing experience in data management, capacity building for institutions, and any other areas of cooperation in the field of upstream petroleum to be agreed mutually between the parties.

Some of the achievements attained in the implementation of the MoU include:

• Shared experience on production sharing agreements audit,
• Hand over of petroleum exploration data (legacy data) of the Pemba-Zanzibar Block and Blocks number 9,10,11 and 12 along with all the information related to those blocks to ZPRA,
• Shared experiences on the proposed areas for amendment of the Petroleum Act 2015 and the Oil and Gas (Upstream) Act 2016,
• Review of various draft Rules and Guidelines related to the management of upstream petroleum activities,
• Shared experience on preparation for bidding of exploration blocks,
• Engagement in work plan and budget meetings,
• Increased the culture of cooperation and mutual support between the two authorities,
• Engagement in training on petroleum blocks relinquishment process, and
• Review of the draft Memorandum of Understanding between PAU, PURA, and ZPRA and provided substantive comments for improvement.