Ntorya lies within the area that falls under the Ruvuma Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) struck with the Tanzanian Government in 2005. The Ntorya area is located in the Mtwara region in southern Tanzania, some 30 kilometres from the coast. The Ntorya gas discovery was made by Aminex Plc, then operator and now joint venture partner in the Ruvuma PSA, in February 2012.

The first well, Ntorya-1, tested gas at a rate of 20 million standard cubic feet a day (mmscf/d) with condensate from Cretaceous Aptian sandstones and was suspended for future production. Ntorya-2 was drilled in 2017 and tested gas at 17 mmscf/d from the same Cretaceous reservoir sandstones. It too was suspended for future production.

A Competent Person’s Report (CPR) in 2018 estimated a gross Pmean of 1.87 trillion cubic feet (tcf) gas-in-place with 763 billion cubic feet (bcf) gross recoverable gas of 2C Contingent Resources associated with the Ntorya gas discovery. These kind of volumes were deemed enough to begin commercial development of the discovery.

By 2020, APT became operator of the Ruvuma PSA. In 2023 APT acquired Scirocco Energy’s 25% which resulted in APT having a 75% interest in the venture. It conducted a 338 km2 3D seismic survey of the area to better understand its prospectivity, signed a Gas Sales Agreement with the Tanzanian Petroleum Development Corporation to guarantee a buyer for the extracted gas and was granted a 25-year Development Licence, kickstarting the current stage of operations.