Maputo — The chairperson of the American oil company ExxonMobil in Mozambique, Liam Mallon, has announced that the company will resume its projects in the northern province of Cabo Delgado by the end of 2026.
In May, the company had announced that the decisions on resumption of projects would be made by the end of 2025.
According to Mallon, who was speaking to reporters, on Wednesday, in Maputo, minutes after an audience granted to him by Mozambican President, Filipe Nyusi, "at the moment, we have reached a phase of what we call Front End Engineering and Design. So it's the engineering and design process for this project.'
ExxonMobil is leading the construction and operation of all future natural gas liquefaction and related facilities for the Area 4 deep water block off the Cabo Delgado coast, operated by Mozambique Rovuma Venture (MRV), a joint venture owned by ExxonMobil, the Italian energy company ENI, and CNPC of China.
The project has suffered several postponements as a result of extreme violence carried out by the Islamist terrorists in parts of Cabo Delgado.
"We're very excited about this', said Mallon. "Obviously, along the way, there have been some obstacles and things we've had to stop and start again. But we're pleased to be at the point where we're ready to start again, and we're just waiting for some final approvals'.
He also said that this is a multi-billion dollar project that will generate a great deal of money over several decades, so there are many aspects that need to be taken care of.
"We need to take care of economic development issues for that province and, therefore, security, stability, economic development, for the revenues that are going to come. The natural gas project in the Rovuma Basin is one of the largest investments in Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in the world', he said.
The project, he added, includes a large onshore LNG plant, which will produce 18 to 19 million tonnes of LNG a year, large underwater drilling wells to supply the plant and two large floating LNG export platforms off the Cabo Delgado coast.
"I assure you that this is going to be the lowest greenhouse gas emission project in the world. That's very important to know,' he said.
