The Executive approved a concession contract for the exploration and production of oil in the Angoche A6-C Offshore Area, which involves the Italian oil company ENI Moçambique as operator and the National Hydrocarbons Company (ENH).
According to information from Lusa, the decision was taken at an ordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers, where it was explained that the concession gives the concessionaire ‘the exclusive right to conduct oil operations, with a view to producing oil, from the resources originating from one or more oil deposits in the subsoil’.
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It also confers the ‘non-exclusive right to build and operate infrastructures for the production and transport of oil produced from subsoil oil deposits, within the limits of the concession area’, off the provinces of Nampula and Zambézia, ‘unless there is available access to an oil or gas pipeline system or other existing infrastructures under reasonable commercial terms and conditions’.
‘Mozambique’s National Petroleum Institute (INP) announced in 2022 that Italy’s ENI had submitted a proposal to explore areas made available in the sixth tender for the Concession of Areas for the Exploration and Production of Hydrocarbons, specifically area A6-C, as operator (60 per cent), with Mozambican state-owned ENH as partner (40 per cent),’ Lusa reported.
Mozambique has the third largest natural gas reserves in Africa, estimated at 180 million cubic feet, and there are currently three approved development projects underway in the country to exploit the natural gas reserves in the Rovuma basin, one of the largest in the world, located off the coast of Cabo Delgado.
Of the three projects, two are large-scale and involve channelling the gas from the seabed to land, where it will be liquefied for export by sea.
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For the Council of Ministers, the approval of this oil concession represents a significant step forward for Mozambique’s hydrocarbon industry, promising to strengthen the country’s economy and increase its participation in the global energy market.
