When molecules finally flowed to market
After years of drilling, licensing, and negotiating, the wait was over. In April 2016, Aminex announced that gas from the Kiliwani North-1 (KN-1) well had finally started flowing into Tanzania’s national grid.
It was a milestone not just for the company, but for the country. KN-1 marked the first time Aminex had moved beyond being a pure explorer and into the ranks of producing companies. Tanzania, meanwhile, gained a new domestic supply source to feed growing demand for power and industry.
The plan was a gradual ramp-up. Initial flows began at modest levels, with volumes increasing step by step over a 90–100 day commissioning phase until the system stabilised at around 25–30 million cubic feet per day. During that period, TPDC was invoiced monthly for gas produced, with payments made in advance under the security arrangements of the GSA.
For investors who had followed the company since the early Nyuni days, this was vindication. After more than a decade of waiting, Aminex could finally show a revenue line on its accounts — in hard US dollars.
It was also proof of concept. Gas from Kiliwani North flowed directly into the new Songo Songo processing plant and then into the pipeline system feeding Dar es Salaam. The whole chain — wellhead to processing to pipeline to end user — was now working. That mattered for the much larger discoveries in the Ruvuma basin, which would one day follow the same route.
For Aminex, first gas was the reward for persistence. For shareholders, it was proof that the long story of licences, partners, and patient waiting had a tangible outcome. But as so often in oil and gas, the story didn’t end there. Within a year, new challenges emerged.
➡️ Next time: Chapter Six — Challenges and Decline. We’ll follow the pressure problems that reduced KN-1’s flow, forcing Aminex to rethink its strategy and refocus on the bigger prize in the Ruvuma basin.