Samsung Heavy Industries expects to receive an order this year from Eni to build a floating LNG platform to process huge gas reserves in Mozambique, a spokesman said on Thursday, a sign a long-delayed project is moving ahead.

Samsung Heavy is in exclusive talks with Eni as part of a consortium with France’s Technip and Japan’s JGC in a project worth around $5.4 billion. Samsung’s share would be worth $2.5 billion, the spokesman said.

“We expect the order in the second half of this year,” a Samsung Heavy spokesman said on Thursday.

Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries, made one of the biggest gas finds in a decade in 2010, offering the opportunity to transform one of the world’s poorest countries into a major LNG exporter.

Eni is due to build offshore processing units while U.S. firm Anadarko is planning a vast onshore development but the projects have faced uncertainty and investors are keenly awaiting long-delayed final investment decisions.

Samsung’s announcement opens the door for ENI to make its final call this year, which would make Anadarko’s development more likely to proceed, industry sources said.

The projects could unlock as much as $30 billion of investment.

Mozambique is mired in a deep debt crisis and gas investment is the most likely escape route after donors shunned the southern African country for hiding billions of dollars of state borrowing

Source: Reuters