Cooking gas production in Mozambique begins in 2026

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Cooking gas production in Mozambique begins in 2026

12:22 CAT | 15 Jul 2025

File photo: Lusa

The Mozambican government estimated yesterday that domestic gas production by South African oil company Sasol will begin in early 2026, after delays caused, among other things, by post-election unrest in the country.

“The project is underway, it’s moving forward. There were delays due to the protests and other issues. But we expect that by the end of the year, early next year, the project will begin to move forward,” Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Estêvão Pale, told journalists in the southern province of Inhambane on Monday.

At issue is a project by the South African oil company Sasol to produce cooking gas in Mozambique, given that it already operates gas production in the country in Temane (Inhassoro) and Pande (Govuro), in Inhambane.

The foundation stone for this project was laid in Inhassoro on March 27, 2022.

According to Estêvão Pale, who was speaking on the sidelines of the launch ceremony of the Public Consultation Program on the Legal Reform of the National Extractive Sector, the delays in question were caused, in particular, by nearly five months of social tension, with demonstrations, initially protesting the October 9 election results, resulting in the deaths of 400 people and the destruction of property.

In May, the South African oil company Sasol said it planned to begin domestic gas production in September, after announcing that the plant being built in southern Mozambique was in the commissioning phase.

“This entire infrastructure is practically complete. We are now in the commissioning phase of the domestic gas plant itself. Therefore, this component of the cooking gas plant is currently undergoing commissioning between June and July (…) if all goes well, by the end of September, we will have the new plant starting production,” Sasol’s general manager in Mozambique Ovídeo Rodolfo told reporters at the time.

In April of this year, Sasol’s company president said it planned to complete the US$1 billion gas and electricity production sharing agreement (PSA) project in Mozambique in September.

“This is a US$1 billion project that is coming to an end in September. It has been a wonderful project,” Sasol’s president and CEO Simon Baloy said after meeting the Mozambican president in Maputo to discuss the project.

“This project will not only allow gas to be used for energy production, but we will also send this gas to Mozambique’s second-largest power plant, the CTT [Central Térmica de Temane], which is also nearing completion and will also produce LPG [cooking gas cylinders] for use and reduce the amount of gas imported into Mozambique,” Baloy added.

The PSA project calls for, respectively, the production of 53 million megajoules of natural gas per year, which will materialize the implementation of the Temane Thermal Power Plant, and the production of 4,000 barrels of light oil per day, according to the Mozambican government.

The Central Térmica de Temane will have the capacity to produce 450 megawatts of electricity, and the processing unit will produce 30,000 tons of LPG per year.

The Mozambican government, which previously estimated that production at that unit would begin in March, expects the country to reduce its imports of bottled cooking gas by 70% with the start of operations at the Inhassoro unit.

Source: Lusa