Mozambique: ENI Completes Rovuma Basin Sale to Exxonmobil

14 December 2017
Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)

Maputo — The Italian energy company ENI announced on Wednesday that it has completed the sale of half of its holding in Area Four of the Rovuma Basin, off the coast of the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, to the American oil and gas giant ExxonMobil.

The sale was agreed in March, and ExxonMobil agreed to pay ENI 2.8 billion US dollars. ENI should now pay the Mozambican government capital gains tax of 350 million dollars.

The ENI subsidiary ENI-East Africa owns 70 per cent of Rovuma Basin Area Four. With the concluded sale to ExxonMobil, there are three partners in ENI-East Africa, which is now to be renamed Mozambique Rovuma Venture - they are ENI (25 per cent of Area Four), ExxonMobil (25 per cent), and China National Petroleum Corporation (20 per cent).

The remaining 30 per cent is held by Kogas of South Korea, Galp Energia of Portugal and Mozambique's National Hydrocarbon Company (ENH), each with ten per cent.

ENI remains the operator of Area Four and will continue to lead the consortium building a Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) platform above the Coral South gas field, and all upstream operations in Area 4.

But ExxonMobil will lead the construction and operation of all future onshore natural gas liquefaction and related facilities. According to the ENI announcement, "This operating model will enable the use of best practices and capabilities between ENI and ExxonMobil, with each company focusing on distinct and clearly defined scopes while preserving the benefits of fully integrated projects".

The final investment decision for the Coral South FLNG Project was made in Maputo in May 2017. ENI points out that this was "just three years after the drilling of the final exploration well, in a country that is a newcomer to the global gas market".

The discoveries in the deep waters of Area Four, about 40 kilometres off the Mozambican coast contain an estimated 85 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. ENI believes that Mozambique is "well positioned to supply LNG customers around the world for the next 40 years and beyond".

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