Jica, AfDB show interest in financing natural gas supply

Dar es Salaam. After three years, Tanzania has finally got two investors who are ready to finance its gas distribution network that is expected to connect 30,000 households and serve about 8,000 vehicles in Dar es Salaam.

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and African Development Bank (AfDB) have shown interest to fund the project, according toTanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) senior petroleum engineer, Mr Modestus Lumato.

“After a detailed design for the project in 2014, we have been looking for the financiers and the two have finally shown interest,” he told The Citizen.

According to him, the initial estimate for the project was Sh162.6 billion but there might be changes due to time.

Elaborating he said that other factors have to be considered for the updated project including the Rapid Bus Transport which was not reflected in the earlier design.

“The government plan is to change the RBT system from using petrol to natural gas, which automatically means the cost has to change,” he said.

However, he noted updating the design for the project will not take long as they do not need to initiate a procurement process for another consultant as the corporation will be using the same one.

In view of this, he said that once the design is updated they expect to commence with the project.

According to the initial design, TPDC expects to construct at least 15 compressed natural gas (CNG) stations in phases.

According to the design, the construction of distribution pipelines for households and institutions is expected to be laid in all the districts of Dar es Salaam city.

He said the plan is to distribute the gas to the whole of Dar es Salaam, whereby they will start with the planned areas before embarking on unplanned areas which need extra planning.

Explaining he said that the major challenge facing the project is poor plan of the city, which has been causing difficulties in identifying areas of construction of the distribution network, and therefore TPDC was looking at best options.

The project is expected to take at least 15 months to complete.

TPDC expects to commence with other procurement process including finding a contractor as the process of updating design continues.