Five Predictions For Tanzania’s oil and gas industry in 2022

It’s hard to predict what is going to happen next year. But one thing we all believe is that tomorrow will be different, there will be some changes or advancements as well. I have been following Tanzania’s oil and gas industry for a while now and tracking its development.

 Perhaps, I am qualified to predict what might happen next year.

The prediction aimed you to prepare and help you make better career and business decisions.

1. Energy Intensive Projects 

Tanzania has lacked a completed project for the production of reliable energy supply. 

To enable greater growth of the economy, the region needs to create projects that would significantly increase the production of reliable energy supply. 

This is related to the production of energy from natural gas, solar, and wind.

One of the most pressing problems in East Africa is the lack of a constant supply of electricity.

When the power fails it can mean loss of your work on your computer, lost food on your refrigerator, loss of water at your home, or loss of customers for small business owners like barbershops or loss of medical equipment at hospitals.

I strongly believe no one industry can fix our challenge for reliable electricity supply alone. But improving natural gas projects can be only part of the solution that will play its role. But other energy sources like renewable, hydropower, are needed.

The simple truth is that more energy production means prosperity in our country. Because now businesses have access to cheap and reliable electricity to produce more products, make more money and create employment for our growing young population.

More energy projects mean means Tanzanians now have a constant supply of cheap electricity. They can work longer hours, learn and have access to the internet as well as access to clean water. Because now our water purifications plant never stop producing clean water

2.Training shortage, Not Skills Shortage

How do we find qualified welders, pipefitters, welding inspectors, coating inspectors, non-destructive testing inspectors, project managers, project cost controllers to build an East African crude oil pipeline?   

How do we help our petroleum engineers and geophysicists to use sophisticated software to make better interpretations of the geological and seismic data?

Why do companies need months of hunting to fill a mid-level single vacancy? What are the root causes for the skills shortage across the industry?

As I dug to the root of the problem, I heard some people complaining about the lack of academic skills and technical capability among jobs applicants.

Furthermore, the course content doesn’t meet the oil-and-gas industry expectation.

Some complain about lack of work experience. Now permit me to look deep into each of these complaints.

It is totally untrue to claim that the deficiency in academic and technical capability is why good people can’t get a job or is the main cause of skills shortage.

In the oil-and-gas business, you have to know things before you do them. Prospective workers have a college degree or ordinary diploma in an oil-and-gas-related curriculum. 

So, they have basic knowledge and understanding of the industry.

On the other hand, lack of experience isn’t a reason for skills shortage across the industry. Because nobody can get experience in college. That’s where training comes in. And the good news is that most of the oil-and-gas skills are largely learned on the job.

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In 2021 due to the oil price volatility and covid-19 pandemic many companies have put internal training development into the list of things to downsize. 

Employers want new personnel to start contributing with no further training. But people who can do that are those who have partially done the same job before.

The pressure to gain a competitive edge in today’s business world has led many organizations to demand more from their existing workers and they will do the same from their future employees.

They want workers to start contributing right away without any further training program or ram uptime. So, these days to get jobs you need to be job-ready. This narrows the supply of competent people in the industry.

 

But the skills shortage has a significant negative impact on the oil-and-gas companies’ shareholders. 

Skills shortage increases high employment costs. It also declines productivity because you have to spend months to fill mid-level positions, which in turn lowers productivity, decreases profitability, and finally creates bad stock. And everyone loses.

3.The downstream petroleum sub-sector will be the market for everyone. 

There are increasing residential development influences the volume of traffic in the country, that is, due to increasing population, it indirectly increases the number of vehicles. 

The increase in car ownership has resulted in greater demand for fuel consumption

The downstream segment of the oil and gas industry involves everything from the processing of natural gas and also marketing and distribution of a product that is delivered from crude oil and natural gas such as lubricants, diesel, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas (cooking gas).

4.Sustainability is a new hot topic in the industry 

Businesses are vulnerable to closure due to competitive market places and regulatory pressures.

Organizations want to know and act on risks and opportunities of environmental issues.

They want to know what does green revolutions means to them? What are the risks and opportunities involved? You can help businesses deal with risks and opportunities.

You can leverage this trend by working as a chief sustainability officer at large companies such as large oil and gas companies who are going green to ensure companies comply with local regulations.

You can also set up your independent consultancy firm helping organizations go green and build value. 

I strongly believe no one industry can fix our challenge for energy shortage alone. So renewable energy can be only part of the solution. That will play its role, but other energy sources like natural gas, petroleum products, and hydropower, are needed.

5.Industry Information overload, minimal real guidance

The oil and gas projects in Tanzania have made big front-page headlines for years and people are still talking about them.

The surprising (or unsurprising) thing about the news and development is that the attention it is garnering now makes all the hullabaloo in previous years a child’s play.

And you know why?

People are thinking of ways to tap into the opportunities that abound in the projects. Maybe you have been thinking the same, too.

Why not? When it made newspaper headlines, we were told that: There are immense supply opportunities in the industry. So there’s no industry information shortage. 

There are constant distractions and industry information overload but minimal real guidance.

 Most entrepreneurs are unsure of where and when their services and products might be needed or even the scale of the services required.

This is creating frustration stress, overwhelm, and paralyzing those wanting to create value and bring results in the industry.

 

I hope this helps.