Tanzania expects to launch fifth oil & gas licensing round by June

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – Tanzania is expecting to officially launch the country’s fifth oil and gas licensing round by June and award licences to the winners by December of the same year, the director general of its Petroleum Upstream Regulatory Authority (PURA) said on Thursday.

“By the end of the first quarter of 2024 or in between the first and second quarter we will launch the bidding round or the roadshow,” said PURA director general Charles Sangweni on the sidelines of an African oil and gas conference in Cape Town.

“We anticipate that by the end of the year we can conclude the licensing round.”

The east African country has proposed auctioning 26 oil and gas blocks, but that number could change, Sangweni added.

(Reporting by Wendell Roelf, Writing by Bhargav Acharya, Editing by Jane Merriman)