On Wednesday it announced that as a result of drilling and testing at the Mamba South 3 well, the estimated reserves in Offshore Area 4 have increased by five trillion cubic feet to 80 trillion cubic feet.
ENI is the operator of Offshore Area 4, with a 70-percent participating interest. The other partners in Area 4 are Galp Energia of Portugal, Kogas of South Korea, and Mozambique’s own National Hydrocarbon Company (ENH), each of which has a 10 per cent share.
In March ENI announced that it has signed an agreement with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) under which it will sell a 20 per cent stake in its natural gas field in the Rovuma Basin, off the coast of the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado.
CNPC will pay ENI 4.21 billion US dollars for 28.57 per cent of its stake in offshore Area 4. As ENI hold 70 per cent of the rights to Area 4, this equates to 20 per cent of the total stake.
The sale is subject to standard conditions including obtaining all the necessary authorisations from Mozambique’s authorities.
Mozambique has the potential to become one of the world’s largest exporters of natural gas.
In addition to Area 4’s estimated 80 trillion cubic feet of gas, US company Anadarko has discovered up to 65 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in neighbouring Offshore Area 1.
Planning is underway for the construction of onshore facilities in Mozambique to liquefy the gas so that it can be shipped to market. Anadarko hopes to bring this online in 2018, and estimates that it can make Mozambique the third largest exporter of LNG after Qatar and Australia. The income from the project would more than double Mozambique’s Gross National Product.
Post published in: Africa News