Page 4 - AfrOil Week 45 2019

AfrOil COMMENTARY AfrOil
Mozambique’s national oil company is seeking $1.5bn in financing for an LNG project (Image: Anadarko)
Mozambique’s LNG players note progress
Comments from the Africa Oil Week conference highlight steps being taken by Mozambique’s LNG developers as the country’s nascent LNG industry takes shape
WHAT:
Mozambique’s LNG industry is gaining momentum..
WHY:
Total is looking at expanding its Mozam- bique LNG project plan, while state-owned ENH is seeking financing and new markets.
WHAT NEXT:
The first of Mozambique’s new LNG projects is set to enter production in 2022.
MOZAMBIQUE’S state-owned oil company Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH) has laid out plans to court investors for $1.5bn of financing for the Mozambique LNG project. The news came in the same week that France’s Total, the project’s operator, said it was aiming to expand the project by developing two further trains on top of the two already planned for the terminal.
“We’re starting to look at studies for Train 3 and Train 4, because the resources are clearly there to develop,” Total’s head of exploration and production for Nigeria, Mike Sangster, told the Africa Oil Week conference in Cape Town, South Africa, last week.
ENH’s CEO, Omar Mitha – whose com- ments were also reported from Africa Oil Week – said the company would kick off a funding roadshow in Johannesburg, South Africa, next week before moving on to London. The com- pany holds a 15% stake in Mozambique LNG
and is seeking the funds to finance its share of the project’s development costs. Mitha told Bloomberg that ENH had previously resorted to a “backstop” option to have its partners fund the stake. It “was a kind of bridge funding from our partners with the proviso that ENH would go to the marketplace” to seek better terms and relieve them of the debt, he said.
ENH is targeting all banks as well as private equity players, according to Mitha.
Changing hands
Mozambique LNG has undergone two owner- ship changes since the final investment decision (FID) on it was taken by previous operator Ana- darko Petroleum in June.
The company at this point had already agreed
to be taken over by Occidental Petroleum in a transaction that was valued at about $55bn, including the assumption of debt, that closed in August. 
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 45 13•November•2019