The Ntorya gas field is found in the Ruvuma Basin which straddles onshore and offshore Tanzania and Mozambique. Offshore, it is home to the giant gas discoveries now being developed into LNG megaprojects in Mozambique and being appraised in Tanzania.
The basin takes its name from the Ruvuma river delta which has been flowing sediment consistently and regularly for the past 150 million years. This makes for excellent hydrocarbon systems; it is the organic matter in sedimentary layers which eventually turns into oil and gas as it is buried at increasingly higher temperatures and pressures. During this time the supercontinent of Gondwana began to split as Madagascar and India departed East Africa and the resultant gulf created the Indian Ocean.
This rifting helped create the depositional systems that transported sand-rich sediments through ancient ravines. Later, subsidence and major fluctuations in sea levels created the conditions that developed today’s geology including the 100km fluvial channels in which the Ntorya-1 and Ntorya-2 wells found gas. Over time, sediments filled the ravines and channels, which were periodically capped with deep marine shales, leading to the development of stacked stratigraphic traps with proven links to deeper sources of gas.
In 2022, APT collected 3D seismic data across the 338 km2 of its licence area – one of the first and largest t 3D seismic campaign onshore Tanzania. The data that emerged was of exceptional quality, leading to excellent results.
This deeper understanding of the geology benefited the project by:
APT is the operator of the Ntorya Gas Field, Tanzania’s largest onshore gas project. We are building infrastructure and expanding our operations so that we can start producing gas from Ntorya for the Tanzanian market soon.
