Page 8 - GLNG Week 15 2022

GLNG AFRICA GLNG

South Africa energy giant Sasol drops gas

pipeline plan for LNG from Mozambique

‘PIPELINES SASOL Ltd of South Africa has dropped a plan less investment reflects a rapidly changing
to invest in a huge pipeline to move natural gas energy landscape that ultimately will see gas
from northern Mozambique in favour of doing demand follow an exit from coal,” Bloomberg
so by ship, according to Bloomberg. reported on April 13.
The company had been considering being “Sasol is considering liquefied natural gas
part of a consortium that plans to construct a (LNG) imports from the Matola terminal
$6bn, 2,600km (1,615-mile) pipeline linking planned by TotalEnergies and Gigajoule Group
massive offshore gas fields in northern Mozam- in Mozambique, along with further development
bique and Gauteng Province in South Africa of its own fields in the country.”
where Sasol has processing facilities. Sasol is already strongly invested in Mozam-
However, Sasol chief executive officer, Fleet- bique’s onshore natural gas sector. It transports
wood Grobler, told the global news agency on gas from its fields in southern Mozambique to
April 12 that it does not want to get stuck with the South Africa through an 860km pipeline.
infrastructure in a market that is moving away “It’s a no-regret move because you know that
from fossil fuels to cleaner ones. will deplete and then when you don’t need the
South Africa’s biggest fuel producer, in 2020 gas, you don’t develop more gas,” Grobler said.
announced a plan to buy a stake in the Afri- “You need to bridge 10 or 15 years and then you
can Renaissance Pipeline to connect discover- need to go out.”
ies made by TotalEnergies SE and Eni SpA in If Sasol’s production at its assets in Mozam-
Rovuma Basin in Mozambique. bique falls, the company can fill the gap with
That type of infrastructure will mean that the LNG from Matola. It would then regasify the
company will be “tied to that for 30 or 40 years LNG and feed it into its main line connecting
because that’s the nature of the investment,” pipe by 2026.
Grobler said. “Gas in the long term is also a fossil According to Bloomberg, the company plans
fuel and we said we want to get to net zero.” to sign a term sheet for supply by the end of
Sasol, South Africa’s second-biggest emitter of the year after assessing the potential effects of
greenhouse gases, targets to reduce its emissions demand for the fuel from buyers including state-
by 30% by 2030. It hopes to achieve the target by owned utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., which
replacing a portion of the coal it uses to make plans to replace some of its coal-fired power gen-
synthetic fuel and chemicals, with natural gas. eration with gas.™
“The company’s focus on options that involve

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 15 15•April•2022