ENH has a 15 per cent stake in Offshore Area 1 (operated by the US company Anadarko) and a ten per cent stake in Offshore Area 4 (operated by the Italian company ENI). The latest estimate is that these two areas contain 170 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The operators of Areas 1 and 4 are developing plans for a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant to commercialise the gas. According to the daily newspaper “Noticias”, ENH will need to pay for its share in the LNG plant that could cost up to 20 billion dollars.
A source in ENH told “Noticias” that for Area 1 alone, ENH could need to raise at least 2.2 billion dollars – 300 million dollars to finance the prospection phase and 1.9 billion dollars to fund the LNG plant.
However, the economic model developed by the operators expects that the project will generate a total of 400 billion dollars. From this, the government would receive 119 million dollars from its share of production and from royalties.
Experts believe that the Rovuma Basin has much more gas, and perhaps even oil, as these two concessions only cover a radius of about fifty kilometres.
Elsewhere in the basin, the Norwegian state owned hydrocarbon company Statoil is searching for hydrocarbons in Offshore Areas 2 and 5. ENH has a ten per cent stake in this operation.
In addition, the Malaysian oil company Petronas is prospecting in Offshore Areas 3 and 6. Again, ENH holds a ten per cent stake.
Post published in: Africa News