Eni is closing in on an order for a floating liquefied natural gas unit in South Korea, according to reports, with its likely destination to be off Mozambique.

The Italian major will in October firm up an order at Samsung Heavy Industries for a total project cost of $5.4 billion, Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

The FLNG contract is going to a consortium including France’s Technip and JGC of Japan, the report said.

Upstream reported last year that the consortium – called the Reef Consortium – was the frontrunner to land the contract for the FLNG unit for Eni’s planned Coral development in Area 4 off Mozambique.

Yonhap’s report said the order will be worth $2.5 billion to Samsung, with a total value of $5.4 billion.

Eni chief executive Claudio Descalzi had said in March this year that the company would take a final investment decision on Coral in 2016, with another on the Mamba onshore liquefaction project in Mozambique planned for next year. Eni is also planning on more than one FLNG on the Coral field and is looking to reduce its stake in the upstream licence there.

Eni’s development, operations and technology officer Roberto Casula said in March that the three consortia bidding to supply the Coral FLNG vessel managed to increase its capacity from 2.5 million tonnes per annum to 3.4 million tpa, while controlling costs.

He said the cost of the FLNG vessel stands at €1.3 billion ($1.44 billion today) per million tpa — equivalent to just shy of $5 billion.
Source: Upstream