Tanzania

Equinor started exploration drilling activities offshore Tanzania in 2011. A total of 15 exploration wells have been drilled, resulting in nine discoveries with estimated volumes of more than 20 Tcf of gas in place. Twice the size of Norway’s Snøhvit field in the Barents Sea, the discovery is the company’s largest outside Norway.

These gas discoveries were in the deepest waters Equinor (then Statoil) had so far encountered. Subsea installations, with advanced electronics, sensors, metering equipment and management systems, were to be positioned two and a half kilometres beneath the sea. Involving very high pressures and low temperatures, such depths presented several challenges – including the formation of hydrates (hydrocarbon ice) in pipelines to land, which could cause substantial problems unless the right measures were taken. Moreover, the very uneven seabed meant it would be challenging to identify the best route for a 100-kilometre gas pipeline to land. An onshore process plant to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG) also had to be built.

A decade on from the discovery the development has yet to begin.

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