The Project Manager for Tanzania’s 542km gas pipeline from Mtwara to Dar es Salaam, Allan Slowe, said the pipeline’s lifespan will extend from 30 to 90 years, ESI Africa reported.

Slowe, an employee at Worley Parsons Resources and Energy that was the consulting engineer for the mega $1.22b project which was undertaken by China Petroleum and Technology Development Company (CPTDC) and the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC), cited regular and proper maintenance as a necessity to sustain operations, according to All Africa.

Slowe added that no incidents have been recorded since the pipeline started transporting natural gas from Mtwara to Dar es Salaam for power generation in 2015. He said: “there hasn’t been any report of gas leaking or malfunctioning and this tells that the construction work was well implemented.” Furthermore, TPDC’s Managing Director, Kapuulya Musomba, said the corporation has been conducting weekly physical inspections along the pipeline to ensure uninterrupted operations.

The Mtwara-Dar es Salaam pipeline and gas processing plants at Madimba and Songo Songo Islands, largely financed by China loan, is part of a plan to add about 2,000MW of new gas-fired electricity generating power by 2018 to increase Tanzania’s generating capacity to 10,000MW by 2025. Most new plants will be gas-fired but Tanzania also wants to use coal reserves and renewable resources such as wind and geothermal.