The First Floating LNG Facility is Deployed in the Deep Waters of the African Continent

A floating plant for liquefying natural gas arrived in Mozambican waters after a seven-week maritime voyage from South Korea. Lying above the 450 billion cubic meters (Bcm) of resources in the Coral field in Area 4 of the Rovuma Basin, the plant has the capacity to liquefy 3.4 million tons of natural gas per year from subsea gas producing wells per year. Area 4 of the Rovuma Basin is operated by Italian oil and gas giant Eni, who signed a 20-year agreement to sell 100 per cent of LNG production to British Petroleum (BP) in 2016. The plant will extract gas from Area 4 of the Rovuma basin, located off the shore of the Cabo Delgado province of northern Mozambique, starting in the second half of the year. Mozambique’s fledgling oil and gas industry has the potential to produce more than 30 million mt of LNG a year. But the country’s ambitions to join the ranks of the world’s largest LNG exporters have been thwarted by a growing Islamist insurgency in the gas-rich Cabo Delgado province that began in October 2017. The project comes as Mozambique’s government assures oil majors that the security situation in the Cabo Delgado region is under control after four years of disruption and halted projects.

SOURCE: AFRICAN BUSINESS