ExxonMobil expects to finalise the technical design of the natural gas extraction project in northern Mozambican within a year, the vice-president of the US oil company, Walter Kansteiner, announced today in New York.
‘We’ve announced our FEED — Front End Engineering Design, our front end engineering and design [of the project], and that takes about a year. So we’re looking forward to progress on FEED over the next 12 or 13 months,’ said ExxonMobil’s vice-president for external relations, speaking to journalists after meeting in New York with the Mozambican President, who ends a visit to the United States today.
Exxon’s project in Cabo Delgado – a province in the north affected by terrorist attacks almost seven years ago – was initially expected to produce 15.2 million tonnes of gas a year, but the company is now forecasting annual production of 18 million tonnes.
In August, the Mozambican President said that ExxonMobil did not expect to make a decision on the natural gas extraction project in northern Mozambique until 2026.
The head of state, who received the president of ExxonMobil Upstream, Liam Mallon, in Maputo on 14 August, explained at the time that he had discussed with the head of the US oil company ‘progress on the LNG project’ in the Rovuma basin in Cabo Delgado, in the north of the country.
‘We focused our discussions on the initial engineering phase of the project, now with plans to finalise approvals and take the Final Investment Decision by 2026. Presenting significant progress, it was reiterated that this project will be one of the least polluting initiatives with all the potential for a promising future in the liquefied natural gas sector,’ explained Nyusi.
ExxonMobil’s general manager in Mozambique, Arne Gibbs, had said on 3 May that a decision on the investment could be made by the end of 2025.
‘We are optimistic, we are moving forward, but we recognise that there are still challenges,’ he said, and the Final Investment Decision was not expected until the end of next year.
Gibbs’ statements came in the same week that the Mozambican President said that funding is no reason to delay the implementation of the natural gas megaprojects, led by France’s TotalEnergies and the US’s ExxonMobil.
‘It’s fundamental [to go ahead with the projects], because it can’t be a problem of financial decisions now, associated with the terrorist situation. This project already existed, it’s old. That means there was clarity in its execution. It can’t run aground for this reason, let’s look for others,’ criticised Filipe Nyusi, during the 10th edition of the Mozambique Mining and Energy Conference and Exhibition.
Specifically, he called on the concessionaires of Area 1, led by TotalEnergies, to, in view of the ‘gradual promising stability’ on the Afungi peninsula, in the district of Palma, Cabo Delgado, ‘accelerate the development of the resumption of onshore projects’, and that, in Area 4, onshore, led by ExxonMobil, ‘the process leading to the Final Investment Decision should be accelerated, with the necessary adjustments to the Development Plan approved in 2018’.
In the same speech at the conference, the head of state said that the ‘delay’ in realising this type of project ‘causes problems’, because the ‘expectations of the countries are enormous’ and ‘people think that part of their problem may have been solved’.
In previous statements, Arne Gibbs confirmed that the oil company had completed the preliminary engineering and design work for the 18 million tonne per year project in the Rovuma basin, and that the group of engineers and designers would begin the project ‘in the coming months’.
On the insurgency that halted construction in March 2021, Gibbs commented: ‘There have been significant improvements in the safety situation since we started in 2021, and we know there is still more work to be done.’
The Rovuma LNG project will be ‘the largest liquefied natural gas project in Africa, and could be the largest project in African history,’ Gibbs added.
Mozambique has three development projects approved to exploit the natural gas reserves of the Rovuma basin, classified among the largest in the world, off the coast of Cabo Delgado.
Lusa
