Mozambique Oil & Gas: ExxonMobil stepping up search for hydrocarbons

ExxonMobil on Thursday announced that it is looking for experts to carry out environmental baseline and geotechnical services for its three Mozambican exploration blocks in the Angoche Basin and Zambezi Delta.

In an advert in yesterday’s daily newspaper “Noticias”, ExxonMobil invites internationally recognised environmental and geotechnical data acquisition contractors to submit their expression of interest (Click Here for Full Text in Portuguese and English).

In October 2015, Mozambique’s National Petroleum Institute (INP) awarded contracts for the exploration of Block A5-B off the coast of the northern province of Nampula, and Blocks Z5-C and Z5-D off the coast of the central province of Sofala, to a partnership between ExxonMobil and the Russian company Rosneft. ExxonMobil is the operator, with a sixty per cent stake, whilst Rosneft has a twenty per cent share. The remaining twenty per cent stake is held by Mozambique’s National Hydrocarbon Company (ENH).

The Exploration, Production Concession Contract was approved by the government last October, and the consortium is expected to drill a minimum of ten wells – eight of which will be in deep water. According to today’s announcement, the water depths range from 1,000 to 2,500 metres.

The deadline for the expression of interest is 1 March 2019.

ExxonMobil is stepping up its activities in Mozambique. At the end of January, the news agency Zitamar reported that it had bought the rights to twelve hectares of land in the Sommerschield neighbourhood of Maputo from the telecommunications company TMCEL for 47 million US dollars.

ExxonMobil also holds a stake in the Rovuma Basin’s Offshore Area Four, off the coast of the northern province of Cabo Delgado. At the end of 2017, it purchased this 25 per cent stake from the Italian company ENI for 2.8 billion dollars.

ENI is the operator and is leading the consortium building a Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) platform above the Coral South gas field and all upstream operations in Area Four. The first LNG could be produced as soon as 2022.

However, ExxonMobil will lead the construction and operation of all future onshore natural gas liquefaction and related facilities. It is expected that the Final Investment Decision for the consortium’s first onshore LNG plant will take place in the second half of this year. Under the plans, two LNG factories (known as trains) will be constructed which will each produce 7.6 million tonnes of LNG per year. This will be larger than the LNG project proposed by Anadarko and its partners in neighbouring Area One, which envisages two trains producing a total of 12.88 million tonnes of LNG per annum.

Area Four is estimated to hold 85 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Source: AI