Tanzania Petroleum Development and StatoilHydro in joint study

The Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) in partnership with StatoilHydro is leading a joint-industry one-year study of meteorological and oceanographic conditions in Tanzania's deep sea.
The study codenamed METOCEAN aims to provide information for safe and efficient operations during offshore petroleum exploration. Following this study, StatoilHydro has announced that all shipping and fishing vessels are requested to note the location of the surface buoy and avoid the immediate surrounding area by at least 3 km.

The study is based on the installation of four deep-buoys equipped with passive recording equipment between Kilwa and Zanzibar. Three buoys (C1-C3) will be 400 metres below the surface, to measure ocean current speeds and the single wave buoy will have a surface float to measure wave action.
It is equipped with a radar reflector and is about 180 km from the nearest shore.

Installation, service, inspections and retrieval will require four ship cruises to the four locations and after final retrieval of all four buoys, only 13 small, concrete anchors will remain on the seabed.
It is expected that METOCEAN will produce new data on the deep-sea, from locations that are very expensive to investigate. It will benefit Tanzania irrespective of any future deep-sea exploration.