The minister for Energy, Dr Medard Kalemani, speaks with the Commissioner for Petroleum and Gas, Ms Mwanamani Kidaya, yesterday during his tour of Mikocheni gas station in Dar es Salaam. PHOTO | ANTHONY SIAME
Dar es Salaam. The minister for Energy, Dr Medard Kalemani, has directed the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) through its subsidiary gas supply company (Gasco) to initiate a dialogue with Dar es Salaam Rapid Transit (Dart), to explore the possibility of converting buses to run on natural gas. Currently, all buses operating on the Dart corridor use diesel, which is more expensive than the use of natural gas. The minister issued the directives yesterday when visiting the development of households’ gas distribution project, which is being implemented at Mikocheni, University of Dar es Salaam and Mwenge areas. “Natural gas is not for home use only, we can use it to run our vehicles, so I urge Udart, the current operator on the Dart system, to start considering using natural gas in order to reduce operating costs. TPDC and Gasco should meet and come up with the right decision,” he said. For their part, TPDC officials said the use of natural gas would require installation of a new fuel system on a vehicle. The minister visit was part of activities to mark the 50th anniversary of TPDC. He said there were more than 200 vehicles, which have been converted to the natural gas system and this, according to him, has helped many owners to reduce operating costs besides reducing pollution. The minister said the government was planning to use one trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserve to connect homes, 3.8 trillion cubic feet for industries, 4.6 trillion for fertiliser and petrochemical industries and 9.1 trillion cubic feet for energy production. Udart spokesperson Deus Bugahywa said they had already started negotiating with Dart and experts from the National Institute of Transport (NIT) to conduct an analysis on cost savings should they shift to the natural gas use. He said 126 buses operating weekly consume 16,500 litres of diesel on weekdays and 12,000 litres during weekends and that they purchase fuel on indicative wholesale prices set by the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority (TCRA) each month. The director of Natural Gas Distribution at Ewura, Mr Thobias Rwelamila, said the conversion of Udart buses from fuel to gas use is expected to save operating costs by nearly 40 per cent..
