The government will extend the concession contract for oil exploration in the Angoche A6-C Offshore Area by eight years , a project involving Italian oil company Eni Moçambique as operator and Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH).
According to a document from the Council of Ministers, shared by Lusa, in the event of a commercial discovery, an additional period of 30 years will be granted for the development and production phase.
‘An area of 5,600 square metres has been defined for oil exploration and production, off the provinces of Nampula and Zambézia,’ said the Executive.
In 2022, Mozambique’s National Petroleum Institute (INP) announced that Italian company Eni had submitted a proposal to explore areas made available in the sixth tender for the concession of areas for hydrocarbon exploration and production, specifically Area A6-C, as operator (60 per cent), with Mozambican state company ENH as partner (40 per cent).
Mozambique has three development projects approved to exploit the natural gas reserves of the Rovuma basin, classified as among the largest in the world, all located off the coast of Cabo Delgado province.
‘An area of 5,600 square metres has been defined for oil exploration and production, off the coast of the provinces of Nampula and Zambézia’
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).
A third completed, smaller project also belongs to the Area 4 consortium and consists of a floating platform for capturing and processing gas for export, directly at sea, which started up in November 2022.
