Big investments to develp Pemba and Palma

An amount of U$30 billion has been invested by the Mozambican government to develop the country’s northern ports to improve its prospects of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Nelson Ocuane, president of the state oil company ENH, commented that the investments would be made to develop the northern ports of Pemba and Palma. He said a ‘giant logistics base’ and LNG production plants were planned for gas produced from offshore fields in the Rovuma Basin which is being developed by United States’ oil major Anadarko Petroleum Corp and Italy’s Eni. “In an initial phase, liquefaction units with a total capacity for 20 million tonnes a year of LNG will be built and operated. The investment to be made tops $30 billion,” Ocuane said. The initial exports from 2018 will come from a first LNG train of 5 million tonnes a year, with overall capacity for the industry to be ramped up subsequently to 20 million tonnes per year. Simon Ashby-Rudd, the Standard Bank Group’s head of oil and gas, said that Mozambique had arrived on the world energy map and would be a major player in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) markets going forward. “This is great news for the movement of freight in general as it serves as a major incentive to boost infrastructure at ports and airports as well as access roads to these facilities,” he said. He noted that Mozambique’s LNG export potential would be hampered without the right infrastructure. “There needs to be policy consistency and gas infrastructure funding models that will attract long-term infrastructuretype returns,” said Ashby-Rudd.