Tanzanian billionaire Rostam Aziz's takeover of the country's top gas field is blocked by regulator

Tanzania’s competition regulator has blocked a deal that would have given Tanzanian tycoon Rostam Aziz a large stake in the company that runs the Songo Songo gas field, which produces about half of the country’s natural gas.

The Fair Competition Commission issued a notice on Oct. 5 prohibiting the merger application filed for the transaction, Orca Energy Group Inc., the field’s Canadian-listed operator, said in a statement late on Oct. 9. The commission gave no reasons.

Under the agreement signed in April, Aziz’s Taifa Gas Tanzania Ltd. was to take 49% of Orca’s entire Tanzanian business, with Amber Energy Investment L.L.C-FZ taking the remaining 51%. Orca agreed to sell the business for a nominal $10, saying its assets had no material value once tax claims, licence uncertainty and other liabilities were counted.

Orca said the deal has not been terminated. The company is seeking more information from the regulator and assessing its options.

Billionaires.Africa could not find a public statement from Taifa Gas on the decision.

A licence running out

The ruling lands as the field’s 25-year development licence, granted in 2001, reaches its expiry date on Oct. 10.

On Oct. 1, Tanzania’s energy minister issued a notice of intention to extend the licence to the state-owned Tanzania Petroleum Development Corp. and PanAfrican Energy Tanzania Ltd., the Orca unit that runs the field, on new terms. The notice started a 60-day statutory process.

PanAfrican Energy rejected those terms on Oct. 9, calling their commercial and fiscal conditions “uneconomic and unacceptable.” It said it would keep gas flowing to customers during the 60-day window and plans to stop operating the facilities by Nov. 29, or earlier if the state oil company and Songas Ltd. confirm they are ready to take over.

Songo Songo, an island field off Tanzania’s southern coast, was the country’s first natural gas development. Its gas travels about 207 kilometres by pipeline to Dar es Salaam, where it feeds power stations and factories. It accounts for about 54% of Tanzania’s daily gas output, according to Orca, and holds proved and probable reserves of 293 billion cubic feet.

Orca’s relationship with the government had soured long before the sale. In August 2025 it filed three arbitration claims against Tanzania and the state oil company at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, citing delays over the licence and an order to supply gas at subsidised prices.

Aziz’s growing empire

The Songo Songo deal was meant to be one of the biggest moves yet by Aziz, a former ruling-party lawmaker who has spent the past decade building one of East Africa’s largest private business groups.

When the agreement was announced in April, he called it “a pivotal moment for Tanzania” and said greater Tanzanian ownership of the country’s resources could deepen industrial capacity and keep more profits at home.

Aziz, 62, made much of his fortune as a co-founder of Vodacom Tanzania. In 2014 he sold a 17% stake in the carrier for about $250 million. In 2022 he teamed up with Madagascar’s Axian Group to buy Millicom’s Tanzanian operations, which included the Tigo network.

Taifa Gas is now the anchor of his energy business. It runs liquefied petroleum gas import terminals in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar and is completing a $130 million terminal at the Dongo Kundu special economic zone near Mombasa, which Kenyan President William Ruto launched in 2023.

In March, his company Taarifa Ltd. agreed to buy control of Kenya’s Nation Media Group from the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, a deal that gives him an indirect 54.08% stake in East Africa’s largest media house.

Aziz represented Igunga in Tanzania’s parliament for the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party from 1994 to 2011 and served as its national treasurer. Forbes named him Tanzania’s first dollar billionaire in 2013.