The National Petroleum Institute (INP) believes that the conditions are in place for the implementation of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) exploration project on the Afungi peninsula in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, and expects oil company TotalEnergies to soon resume activities suspended in 2021 for safety reasons.
‘Based on the contacts we have had with TotalEnergies at various levels, we believe that the conditions are in place for operations to begin soon. However, we can’t give a date yet, but we are working to make it happen as soon as possible,’ explained the chairman of the board of directors (chairmans), Nazário Bangalane.
In February, the chairman of TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanné, said during the presentation of the 2023 results that the company hopes to restart activities in the Rovuma basin by the end of this year.
Speaking in London, England, he explained that his company was monitoring the entire scenario in order to avoid a forced return.
‘We are monitoring the terrain, the civilian population has already returned and we can see a certain normality. There are some engineering issues to be resolved, but I hope to restart the project by the end of the year. What we don’t want to happen is to make people return to Cabo Delgado and then force them to leave, which would be a very complex situation,’ he clarified.
At the time, Pouyanné also emphasised that TotalEnergies has been making progress with suppliers and different contractors, who are interested in reactivating the project.
‘We’re mobilising the contractors again and we’re not far away from having everything ready to return to Mozambique and restart the work. Now we need to reactivate the financial institutions around the world,’ he said.
Mozambique has three development projects approved to exploit the natural gas reserves in the Rovuma basin, classified as among the largest in the world, all located off the coast of Cabo Delgado province.
Two of these projects are larger and involve channelling the gas from the seabed to land, cooling it in a factory and then exporting it by sea in a liquid state.
One is led by TotalEnergies (Area 1 consortium) and work progressed until it was suspended indefinitely after the armed attack on Palma in March 2021, when the French energy company declared that it would only resume work when the area was safe. The other is the still unannounced investment led by ExxonMobil and Eni (Area 4 consortium).