Mozambique: Chapo discusses gas and agriculture with head of ENI – AIM report

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Mozambique: Chapo discusses gas and agriculture with head of ENI – AIM report

1:31 CAT | 12 Jun 2025

Photo: Presidency

Mozambican President Daniel Chapo on Wednesday received the Chief Executive Officer of the Italian energy company, ENI, Claudio Descalzi.

Descalzi reaffirmed ENI’s partnership with Mozambique, notably in expanding its liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects. ENI is the operator of Coral Sul, the floating LNG platform off the coast of the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

He announced that the Mozambican government has authorised the development plan for a second floating platform, Coral Norte.

“Coral Norte is the future”, he told reporters. Authorisation of the development plan meant that “Coral Norte is something real now”. ENI expects the Coral Norte field, in Area Four of the Rovuma Basin, to produce 3.5 million tonnes a year of LNG.

Coral Norte is essentially a copy of the Coral Sul platform, which is already producing and exporting LNG, and has become critical to the Mozambican economy. In 2023, according to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Coral Sul was responsible for 50 per cent of the growth in the country’s GDP that ear. Projections for this year suggest that it will be responsible for 70 per cent of GDP growth.

The construction of the Coral Norte platform was budgeted at 7.2 billion US dollars. It is expected to begin production in 2028, with a forecast life span of 30 years.

Descalzi also spoke of ENI’s plans to branch out into agriculture, for the production of vegetable oil. This is a project that will cover 150,000 hectares and will produce 130,000 tonnes of oil a year. He forecast that the project will create over 120,000 jobs.

This could be doubled, to 300,000 jobs, if the amount of land available were increased to 300,000 hectares. “It’s a revolution!”, he claimed.

Descalzi said the production of oil for biofuels would not compete with food crops. ENI was already developing similar projects in other African countries, including Angola, Ivory Coast. Algeria and Egypt. Large scale agricultural investment, he claimed, could produce work for over 100,000 people.

READ: Mozambique: Second floating LNG production platform now a reality – Eni CEO | Watch

The President of Mozambique Daniel Francisco Chapo meets Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi

Natural gas and agriculture”, he said, “are two legs which should go together, and which should allow Mozambique, not only to walk, but to run”.

A ENI vai contribuir com 70% do crescimento previsto para este ano.
A plataforma de exploração gás em alto mar na província de Cabo Delgado, Coral Sul, contribuiu com 50% do crescimento do Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) em 2023.#pib #stvnoticias #gruposoico https://t.co/3GxkwFtECZ pic.twitter.com/IUU8HVtgTW

— stvnoticias (@stvnoticias_mz) June 12, 2025