Tanzania’s Investment Climate: What Recent Evidence Says About Energy Risk

International Institutions Are Pointing to Stability

International institutions do not remove investment risk, but their assessments matter because they look at policy direction, fiscal management, macroeconomic stability and the credibility of reform programmes. On that front, recent commentary has been more supportive than some negative narrative suggests.

In April 2025, reporting on World Bank comments described Tanzania as a leading example in the management of economic and financial policies. The World Bank also pointed to economic resilience despite global turbulence and highlighted Tanzania’s ability to mobilise domestic resources and maintain key development programmes.

The IMF has also continued to support Tanzania through its Extended Credit Facility and Resilience and Sustainability Facility arrangements. In 2025 and 2026, IMF engagement remained active, with funding linked to reform progress, fiscal discipline, financial-sector resilience and broader macroeconomic stability.

Moody’s reaffirmation of Tanzania’s B1 rating with a stable outlook adds another layer. The rating remains below investment grade, so it should not be presented as a clean bill of health. But the stable outlook still matters because it reflects Tanzania’s growth trajectory and improving policy framework, while balancing the structural and social challenges that remain.

For investors, the point is not that outside institutions are blindly positive. They are not. The point is that the institutional direction is not consistent with the idea of a country being written off as uninvestable.

Record Investment Activity

The broader investment data also matters. According to recent reporting based on Tanzania Investment and Special Economic Zones Authority figures, Tanzania registered 915 investment projects in 2025 with a combined value of approximately US$10.95 billion. That was described as the highest level recorded since formal investment promotion began in 1996.

Foreign direct investment also increased, reaching approximately US$1.72 billion in 2025, compared with US$1.34 billion a year earlier. Those figures are not specific to oil and gas, but they are still relevant because they indicate wider capital confidence in Tanzania’s direction.

Investment registrations are not the same as completed projects. Some projects will progress more slowly than expected, and some will not reach final investment or full delivery. But record-level registrations do show that investors are actively engaging with Tanzania rather than walking away.

That is important context for Aminex investors. Ntorya is not being developed in a country where capital has stopped looking. It is being developed in a country where investment activity, infrastructure planning and industrial ambition are visibly increasing.

How the Energy Industry Is Responding

The most useful test is not political rhetoric. It is capital behaviour.

If Tanzania were broadly viewed as too unstable, too unpredictable or too hostile to serious energy investment, one would expect major companies to reduce exposure, avoid new negotiations and step back from long-term projects. Recent evidence points in the opposite direction.

Maurel & Prom has continued to invest in Tanzania through Mnazi Bay, including a major drilling campaign. FIRST E&P of Nigeria has signed an MoU with TPDC to assess and potentially develop the Mnazi Bay North Block. Chevron has expressed interest in upstream oil and natural gas opportunities in Tanzania. Discussions around the major LNG project involving international partners have continued. Dangote has held high-level talks covering energy, infrastructure and fertiliser production.

These are not small signals. Companies of this scale do not spend management time, technical resources and capital-assessment effort casually. They conduct legal, fiscal, political, commercial and technical due diligence before moving forward.

None of this guarantees project success. But it does show that serious energy and industrial players are still engaging with Tanzania as a live investment destination.

Domestic Gas Is Central to the Strategy

The relevance to Aminex comes through Tanzania’s domestic gas strategy. The country is expanding electricity access, developing CNG transport, discussing fertiliser and industrial investment, planning further power and infrastructure growth, and positioning domestic gas as part of its wider economic development path.

That matters because Ntorya is not a speculative idea detached from national priorities. It sits within Tanzania’s southern gas system, with a planned route to Madimba and a development pathway led by ARA Petroleum Tanzania. Aminex’s retained 25% carried interest gives it exposure to that development without the same early funding burden that would normally apply to a small company.

Domestic gas is also about more than molecules and infrastructure. It supports employment, local business activity and wider economic participation. As investment flows into energy, transport, fertiliser, industry and related services, it can help create jobs directly on projects and indirectly through logistics, construction, maintenance, supply chains and the wider communities that grow around industrial activity.

The current phase is therefore about execution: pipeline completion, NT-2 hook-up, CH-1 drilling, NT-1 workover, first gas and then production growth. But the wider significance is that successful domestic gas development can feed not only power stations and industrial users, but also livelihoods, mobility and job creation across the economy.

A country actively attracting energy investment, expanding access to electricity and linking gas to industrial growth is a very different backdrop from the claim that Tanzania is simply closed, hostile or untrusted. For Aminex investors, that broader domestic-gas strategy strengthens the setting in which Ntorya is being developed.