The Mandawa Basin of Coastal Tanzania is located onshore, adjacent (about 80 km offshore) to giant offshore gas discoveries in Lower Cretaceous to Miocene formations. The Mandawa Basin Project is a research and educational project organised between the Universities of Oslo and Dar Es Salaam, the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) and Statoil (Tanzania).

SUMMARYThe shelf deposits of the Kihuluhulu Formation (Aptian-Albian) are outcropping in the Mandawa Basin of coastal Tanzania. They form part of a transgressive development and are dominated by outer shelf clays/ siltstones disrupted by interbedded fine to medium grained turbiditic sandstones.In this paper the sedimentological and sediment-petrographical development of the Kihuluhulu Formation and the time-equivalent terrestrial Makonde and shallow marine Kiturika formations will be presented. Possible relations to the offshore successions of Block 2, in particular the Saffron reservoir formation, will also be discussed.This study is based on a compilation of both core and field data, consequently surface alteration/ weathering reactions vs original composition will also be an issue.