Africa Oil & Gas: Qatar LNG expansion plans, a collateral damage to East African gas projects

Qatar plans for LNG capacity expansion could be bad news for projects in east Africa operated by Eni, Anadarko, Shell and Statoil that have yet to take final investment decisions (the Eni-led Coral floating LNG project offshore Mozambique announced its FID on June 1 – BP is the venture’s off-taker). However, such pending projects could be saved if an Asian buyer saw them as a way of weakening Qatar or simply of diversifying away from Qatar.

“East African projects will not go ahead, except as strategic decisions, or with ExxonMobil and Qatar as the buyer,” he said.

Earlier this year, Exxon agreed to take a 25% equity interest in the Eni-operated Mozambican offshore Area 4, whose 85 trillion ft³ (2.4 trillion m³) reserves are enough to feed multiple onshore LNG export trains.

As part of Exxon’s farm-in, it was agreed that the US supermajor – not Eni – would lead the construction and operation of any onshore LNG trains to be developed onshore Mozambique.

Anadarko and partners also have some 75 trillion ft³ offshore Mozambique, while Shell- and Statoil-operated consortia have almost 40 trillion ft³ of gas resources between them offshore Tanzania.(source: by William Powell at NGW)