First gas from Maurel & Prom’s Mnazi Bay gas field in Tanzania

PARIS -- Maurel & Prom has opened the first two wells at Tanzania's Mnazi Bay gas field that will deliver gas to the Madimba processing center (operated by GASCO, a subsidiary of TPDC), the entry point of the gas pipeline linking Mtwara to Dar es Salaam.

The output will initially be used for commissioning operations for the new TPDC/GASCO facilities, but it is then expected to ramp up rapidly to 70 MMcfgd with the connection of two additional wells in October 2015. A production capacity of 80 MMcfgd is expected by the end of the year.

In the next few months, Maurel & Prom will analyze how the production output and reservoirs are behaving, and given the encouraging results from the MB4 well drilled in the first half of 2015 would define an additional production capacity.

Under the Gas Sales Agreement, signed on Sept. 12, 2014, for which financial guarantees are now in place, the sale price has been set at $3.00 per million BTU, or around $3.07 per thousand cubic feet, rising in line with the US CPI industrial index.

Maurel & Prom went into Tanzania in July 2004 with the Bigwa-Rufiji-Mafia permit in which it holds a 60% interest. In 2009, it strengthened its position with the acquisition, from Artumas, of the Mnazi Bay permit, in which its operated interest is 48.06%.

The Mnazi Bay permit is governed by a production sharing contract dating from May 18, 2004. The development license was granted on Oct. 26, 2006, for a 25-year term, renewable once for a further period of 20 years.