By Sa’ad Bashir
Tanzania plans to take advantage of its booming oilfield activity to grow its financial sector, particularly the local insurance industry. Tanzaniainvest reports that the government may include a clause for gas companies operating in the country to be insured by local insurance firms, in the upcoming energy bill.
“This should ensure a greater benefit of the up and coming gas industry in Tanzania to the local economy and avoid what happened in the mining sector, where companies were insured abroad”, Tanzaniainvest argues.
International Oil Companies have reported discoveries of more than 20 trillion cubic feet of gas in four offshore acreages in the country in the last three years. The most active firms are the British Gas Company BG and the Australian minnow Ophir Energy, who are partners in Blocks 1, 3 and 4 as well as Norwegian Statoil and ExxonMobil, who both participate in Block 2. Tanzanian authorities are hoping that the finds will reach 100 million cubic feet by 2010.
