Page 6 - DMEA Week 01 2021

DMEA COMMENTARY DMEA

Mauritania and

Mozambique take differing

approaches to LNG

Projects in Mozambique and Mauritania appear to be gaining some
headway, but their sponsors are following different strategies.

AFRICA AFRICA’S natural gas sector is finishing 2021 Industries (SHI) shipyard in South Korea.
and starting 2022 on a hopeful note, with two According to Mozambique’s National Institute
LNG projects at opposite ends of the continent of Petroleum (INP), the FLNG arrived in the
WHAT: making forward progress. Rovuma basin, which is home to Area 4 and
Coral South LNG’s FLNG The two projects in question are Coral South the other offshore licence areas that have been
has arrived at Area 4, LNG offshore Mozambique and an as-yet assigned to the consortia that have pledged to
while NFE has signed an unnamed initiative offshore Mauritania. invest at least $50bn in major Mozambican LNG
MoU with Mauritania on a With respect to Coral South, the Eni-led schemes, on January 3.
proposed energy hub. consortium was reportedly set to take delivery It was on track to arrive at its operating site on
of the Coral Sul, the floating LNG (FLNG) vessel January 5, according to AIS data from Vessels-
WHY: that will process gas from the Area 4 block, as of Value cited by LNG Prime.
The two projects are January 5. The consortium has said it will use the FLNG
illustrative of long-term This was slated to occur about two weeks after to process gas from Coral, the first section of
shifts in approaches to US-based New Fortress Energy (NFE) revealed Area 4 that is slated for development. Eni and
LNG deals. that it had signed an agreement with the gov- its partners aim to start production at the Coral
ernment of Mauritania on the creation of an off- field in the second half of 2022. Assuming that
WHAT NEXT: shore energy hub that will include an LNG plant. they reach this target, they will become the first
NFE’s smaller-scale, Both developments are significant, as they group to launch upstream development in the
modular, flexible strategy will help to open up new offshore production Rovuma basin.
is likely to become more basins. In the meantime, the consortium’s contractor
widespread. They also serve to illustrate the different – TJS, a group formed by the companies Tech-
angles at which investors can approach FLNG nip Energies (France), JGC (Japan) and Samsung
projects. This essay offers a brief view of each (South Korea) – will work to install the vessel at
project and compares these angles. the operating site, which is located in approxi-
mately 2,000-metre-deep water. The group will
Coral South LNG be responsible for carrying out mooring and
As noted above, Eni and its partners in Coral hook-up operations.
South LNG were reportedly set to see the Coral The vessel is about 432 metres long and 66
Sul FLNG vessel arrive at their licence area off- metres wide. It weighs around 220,000 tonnes
shore Mozambique earlier this week. and can accommodate as many as 350 people.
The unit has been in transit since November, It will be able to turn out around 3.4mn tonnes
when it was completed at the Samsung Heavy per year (tpy) of LNG from its single production

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