"The company has recently acquired 8-inch line pipes needed to improve pipeline integrity through line replacements and repairs of certain sections of pipeline between Dar es Salaam and Ruvu River.
Tazama said, "The required line pipe for the replacement work as well as for making the necessary sleeves will be provided by Tazama," the company disclosed.
Observers say the repairs will be a boost to the pipeline which is prone to leakages, vandalism not dismissing saboteurs.
The pipeline is property of the Tanzania and Zambia governments respectively.
It was built to counter the oil crisis which succumbed the landlocked Zambia when the then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) imposed trade embargo.
But its passage way was sometimes subjected to human encroachment. In areas like Gongo la Mboto in Dar es Salaam people erroneously built their houses where the pipeline passes beneath.
Commissioned in 1968 the pipeline eases importation of the Zambia-bound crude oil. Sea tankers upon their arrival at Dar port will moor at an offshore oil discharging facility where they are worked out by using submarine pipes that connects the facility to onshore oil storage tanks.
The oil after being received by the storage tanks is then pumped onto the 1,710-km conveyor pipeline to start its journey to its final destination, Ndola where it is then refined.
With an installed capacity to handle 1 million metric tones of crude per annum the pipeline is one of the renown in Africa.
Plans are underway to lease it to private operators.
Zambia's total energy imports for the year 1997 reached 607,000 metric tonnes, statistics show.
Source: East African Business Week
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