Maputo — The South African multinational company SASOL intends to invest five million US dollars to put into operation a Natural Gas Project for Cars in Mozambique.

The financing agreement for the Vehicular Natural Gas (CNG) project was signed last Friday, in the southern province of Inhambane, between Sasol, the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy and Mozambique's National Investment Bank (BNI), according to a report in the independent daily "O País".

According to the Sasol country managing director and Vice President, Ovidio Rodolfo, the project intends to provide the private sector with the opportunity of participating in the gas business in Mozambique, as well as contributing to the mass use of natural gas.

The Fund will be managed by the National Investment Bank, but it is not the Bank that will approve the projects.

The Chairperson of the BNI Executive Council, Tomás Matola, said that committees set up will be responsible for analyzing the technical projects and will later submit them to the Consultative Council of the Fund, which in turn will analyze them for subsequent approval.

The Inhambane Municipal Council states that it is already working on the creation of a transport agency, with the purpose of offering more affordable transport of people and goods, stressing that "the Inhambane Transport Agency, using natural gas, could contribute to lowering the price of transporting people and goods, and consequently lowering the price of other products that are currently expensive due to high transport costs."

Mozambique imports 1.6 million metric tons of liquid fuels annually, an amount that is expected to be reduced with the increased use of vehicular gas.

At the moment, the country has only four compressed vehicle gas pumps serving a total of 2600 vehicles in Maputo province.