The Mtwara–Dar es Salaam Natural Gas Pipeline (MDNGP), is a pipeline that transports natural gas from Tanzania's natural gas fields in Mnazi Bay, Mtwara Region to

Dar es Salaam Dar es Salaam (; from ar, دَار السَّلَام, Dâr es-Selâm, lit=Abode of Peace) or commonly known as Dar, is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over s ...

Location

The pipeline starts in ''Madimba Village'', in Mtwara Region, in southeastern Tanzania and runs in a northerly direction, through Somanga, in

Lindi Region Lindi Region (''Mkoa wa Lindi'' in Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative regions. The region covers an area of . The region is comparable in size to the combined land area of the nation state of Sri Lanka. The regional capital is the m ...

, to end at Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's largest city, a total distance of approximately .

Background

As of October 2015, Tanzania's total electricity generation capacity stood at 1,500 MW. In 2014, hydro-power generation represented 33 percent of total capacity. Due to prolonged drought, hydro turned out to be an unreliable power source for the country. In order to diversify the national energy pool, and to take advantage of the vast natural gas resources onshore and offshore in the Mtwara and Lindi regions, a natural gas pipeline was designed and constructed, to deliver the natural gas to Dar es Salaam for use in power generation, industrial applications, household cooking and in propulsion of transport vehicles.

Technical details

The main pipeline from Madimba in Mtwara Region, to Dar es Salaam, measures in diameter. At Somanga, in

the main pipeline is joined by a smaller pipeline delivering natural gas from

Songo Songo Island Songo Songo Island is the main island of the archipelago of the Songosongo Islands located in Songosongo ward of Kilwa District of Lindi Region in Tanzania. It is served by the Songo Songo Airstrip. The island's native inhabitants are the Mat ...

. Both processing plants, one in Madimba and the other in Songo Songo are two trains (processing units) each and together are capable of processing of natural gas every 24 hours.

Construction, funding and time table

The construction contract was awarded to ''China Petroleum and Technology Development Company'', a subsidiary of

China National Petroleum Company The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) () is a major national oil and gas corporation of China and one of the largest integrated energy groups in the world. Its headquarters are in Dongcheng District, Beijing. CNPC was ranked fourth ...

, with a US$1.225 billion concessional loan from Exim Bank of China. The Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation invested US$274.492 million into the project. Construction began in June 2013, with commissioning in October 2015. The contract included the construction of the two-train gas processing plant in ''Madimba Village'', Mtwara Region.

References

External links