Mozambique: Petromoc pays bank debts and emerges from insolvency
The president of the National Petroleum Institute (INP) of Mozambique, Carlos Zacarias, told Lusa on Monday that he expects natural gas exports from the Rovuma Basin to start between 2022 and 2023.
“We are in 2017, and after a final investment decision there must be a period of four to five years for the implementation of these projects, so we will be talking, quite possibly, of starting exports between the end of 2022 and 2023,” he said.
Carlos Zacarias was responding to a note from consultancy BMI Research sent to investors and disclosed by Lusa on Monday.
The consultant expects Mozambique’s natural gas exports to be postponed by two years to 2022, compared to the initial forecast.
BMI Research justifies its analysis with the delays in final investment decisions by the major international oil companies, which are generally attributed to the technical complexity and the lack of support infrastructures.
Last week, the World Bank added another factor to this list: government action and the case of the Mozambican state’s hidden debts damaged the economy and rattled investors and multinationals.
Carlos Zacarias told Lusa that everything was being done to correct the trajectory.
“We will do everything we can to get projects implemented to produce, export and supply natural gas”, he stressed.
“We have been working hard since the discovery of natural gas in Rovuma between 2010 and 2012, and we have been working on all legal and contractual conditions that will lead to the implementation of these projects,” he said.
Mozambique has reserves of at least 160 trillion cubic feet of gas, catapulting the country into the top three along with Australia and Qatar, and having the advantage of proximity to the Asian market.
The Area 1 consortium is led by US-based Anadarko and has identified large quantities of natural gas, as has the consortium led by Italy’s Eni, which includes Portugal’s Galp, in Area 4.
In March, US-based Exxon bought 25 percent of Eni East Africa, with experts at the economic analysis unit of The Economist magazine saying at the time that the US oil company’s involvement “increases confidence” in gas exploration in Mozambique.
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