Mozambique: Businesses ask for SMEs to have chance on new gas platform

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Mozambique: Businesses ask for SMEs to have chance on new gas platform

10:07 CAT | 16 Apr 2025

Photo: CTA

The Confederation of Economic Associations of Mozambique (CTA) has called for the publicising of areas that may have opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the new gas platform to be developed by oil company Eni in the country.

“We would like to propose that the specialities of areas that may have job opportunities be made public, right now, so that private labour companies or employment agencies, and vocational training agencies can align their offer according to the future demand that will result from the labour needs of Coral Norte,” the president of the CTA, Agostinho Vuma, said at a press conference in Maputo.

“Mozambique still doesn’t have many specialists. I don’t think we have any Mozambicans who know how to weld on the seabed, but the most important thing is to provide advance information so that universities can also prepare curricula for this purpose. The private sector can organise itself in various ways to participate fully,” explained Vuma.

On 11 April, Mozambique’s government approved an investment of €6.6 billion for the Coral Norte LNG project, Eni’s second platform for the production of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in the Rovuma basin. The project is expected to produce 3.5 million tonnes per year (mtpa) and start up in 2028. Mozambican entrepreneurs estimate that 10% of the investment of around $7.2 billion in the Coral Norte LNG project could directly benefit national SMEs that intend to supply services to the platform.

Mozambique’s government has called for prior preparation to achieve greater gains from the new oil platform and has asked the government for a local content law that will determine the utilisation of national entrepreneurs with direct benefits for the country’s economy.

“A practical, inclusive and transparent way of doing this, in our opinion, would be to set up a working group made up of the operators, the government and the private sector to design specific projects and identify the most competent investors,” added Vuma, insisting on the opportunities to be explored by the private sector within the scope of Coral Norte with investments approved by the government.

Mozambique expects to raise $23 billion (€20.1 billion) over 30 years with the Coral Norte project, Eni’s second platform for producing Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in the Rovuma basin. “According to the development plan approved over the next 25 years, so 30 years that are part of it for the construction and assembly of this system, whose implementation will last 25 years, (…) the government will collect $23 billion in revenue, taxes and other contributions,” the government said on 11 April.

The Eni oil company’s government director, Claudio Descalzi, told the Mozambican President, Daniel Chapo, on 16 January that he planned to expand operations at the LNG project in the Rovuma basin, “projecting Mozambique onto the global panorama” of natural gas.

A source from oil company Eni, the concessionaire for Rovuma Area 4, told Lusa in October 2023 that it was discussing with the government the development of a second floating platform, a copy of the first (Coral South) and called Coral North, to increase gas extraction.

A study by consultancy firm Deloitte concluded in 2024 that Mozambique’s LNG reserves – which currently have projects underway or being studied by oil multinationals such as TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil and Eni – represent potential revenues of $100 billion €96.2 billion), highlighting the country’s international importance in the energy transition.

Source: Lusa