Seventeen years after Shell landed the right to negotiate production sharing contracts for three deep-water blocks off Tanzania’s Spice Islands of Pemba and Zanzibar, authorities are finally moving to open up the play after a decade of gridlocked talks over regional autonomy, writes Barry Morgan.

The Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous region of Tanzania, has announced a non-exclusive multi-client 2D seismic tender for the processing, interpretation and marketing of data acquired in the deep offshore off eastern Zanzibar.