Italian oil and gas major to move ahead with another floating LNG platform, while onshore LNG projects remain stalled.
Italian energy company Eni is preparing to install a second floating LNG (FLNG) platform on the Coral gas field offshore northern Mozambique, called Coral Norte — around 10 km north of the existing Coral Sul FLNG, 50 km off the coast of Palma in Cabo Delgado.
Coral Norte will be a replica of Coral Sul, which began its exports in November last year, according to a document drawn up by the consultancy Consultec, hired by Eni to conduct the environmental impact assessment process.
Like Coral Sul, the Coral Norte platform will also have a production capacity of 3.5 million tonnes per year, sucking up gas from six subseawells to extract natural gas from the Coral off shore reservoir, located in Area 4 of the Rovuma Basin.
The Coral Norte project will cost around $7 billion, and should begin liquefaction and export in 2027 if it progresses according to plan, the Consultec report says.
Eni is moving ahead with its off shore projects even while the onshore Mozambique LNG project operated by TotalEnergies remains paused under force majeure following an insurgent attack on the neighbouring town of Palma in March 2021.
TotalEnergies is expected to lift force majeure later this year, according to Mozambique government sources. Once that happens, ExxonMobil, which is Eni’s co-operator on the Area 4 block, will make a decision on whether to move forward with an onshore LNG project alongside Total’s.
Replicating Coral Sul
Eni apparently prefers to replicate the FLNG platform it has already successfully installed off shore Mozambique, built in South Korea bySamsung Heavy Industries, than to move ahead with a quicker option which might have been ready in 12 months, which chief executive Claudio Descalzi had said it was considering last year.
Eni is now carrying out the environmental impact assessment process for Coral Norte, aiming to receive an environmental licence from the Ministry of Land and Environment. The company has announced two public consultation meetings: on June 30 at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Maputo,and at the Avani Pemba Beach Hotel on July 4.
The project will be managed from Eni’s offices in Maputo and Pemba. Onshore logistics operations in support of the FLNG, the document says, will be carried out from the Port of Pemba, a logistics base in Pemba, and Pemba Airport. Some materials and equipment that require the use of a deepwater port will be unloaded at the Port of Nacala, Nampula province.
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