Mozambique’s first LNG cargo departs from Coral Sul FLNG [Update]
Italy’s Eni on November 13 announced that the first shipment of LNG produced from the Coral gas field, offshore Mozambique, departed from Coral Sul floating LNG (FLNG) facility.
“The first shipment of LNG from Coral South project, and from Mozambique, is a new and significant step forward in Eni’s strategy to leverage gas as a source that can contribute in a significant way to Europe’s energy security, also through the increasing diversification of supplies, while also supporting a just and sustainable transition,” Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi commented.
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The project, sanctioned in 2017, comes on stream after five years, in line with the initial budget and schedule, despite the disruptions caused by the Covid pandemic, Eni said. Eni is the operator of the Coral South project on behalf of its Area 4 partners: ExxonMobil, CNPC, GALP, KOGAS and ENH.
The Coral Sul FLNG has a gas liquefaction capacity of 3.4mn metric tons/year and will put in production 450bn m3 of gas from the Coral reservoir, located in the offshore Rovuma basin. Coral Sul FLNG is the first floating LNG facility ever deployed in the deep waters of the African continent.
In October 2016, BP signed a long-term offtake contract for the purchase of 100% of LNG output from the facility.
"As BP aims for an LNG portfolio of 30mn metric tonnes by 2030, the new Mozambique supply source expands BP’s flexible, high-quality LNG portfolio and further enhances the company’s capability to deliver LNG to markets globally," the company said on November 14 in a separate statement.
The first gas from Coral South was sent to the FLNG in June this year. Eni is proposing to deliver a second LNG production vessel for its Coral Sul FLNG project.
French major TotalEnergies is also developing an LNG export project in Mozambique. But the company last year declared a force majeure at the 12.8mn mt/yr onshore LNG export plant, situated in north Mozambique's coastal Cabo Delgado province, after an attack on the nearby town of Palma.
A decision to restart work on the project could be taken next spring, as Islamic State-led terrorism has been reduced to modest fighting in other parts of the country, Mozambique's finance minister Max Tonela told Bloomberg on September 20.
(update adds comments from BP)