The oil company Anadarko announced today that it is seeking proposals for equipment and services for the opening of natural gas extraction wells off the north coast of Mozambique.
“The good completion and construction program will be approximately three years for the first phase of development” of Area 1 (Dolphin-Tuna and Prosperity deposits), according to Anadarko, who leads the concessionaire consortium, in an announcement published today in the Mozambican newspaper News.
The company intends to receive expressions of interest to supply a Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit (offshore) by the end of the week and then choose a company “with experience in deepwater drilling“.
“The Dolphin-Tuna field is a deep-water discovery, located approximately 50 kilometres off the coast of Mozambique, with depths of seawater reaching 1,200 meters,” the announcement details.
The wells to open at the bottom of the sea dispense platforms and are connected to each other by pipelines lying in the bottom of the ocean and that lead the gas to the liquefaction plant, on land, according to the project published last year by Anadarko.
Today’s announcement is published before the consortium finalizes the final investment decision in Area 1, through a public announcement, usual in this type of investment: the day of the final investment decision marks the beginning of the countdown for the extraction of the first unit of raw material.
At the same time, a number of infrastructure projects have been in progress for about a year in the Afungi peninsula, where the gas liquefaction plant and export dock for special cargo ships will be installed.
The Mozambique LNG project, operated by Anadarko, will be the first liquid natural gas development to be developed onshore, in the province of Cabo Delgado, in Mozambique.
The plant will initially consist of two modules capable of producing 12.88 million tons per year (MTPA) of LNG, destined for export.
The president of the Mozambican National Hydrocarbons Company (ENL), Omar Mithá, announced on Sunday at a conference in New Delhi, India that the final investment decision of the Area 1 consortium is due by end-April and that in July should be the turn of another consortium (led by Eni and Exxon Mobil), which operates the adjacent Area 4, announce the investment in the Mamba field.
The Area 4 consortium (Rovuma LNG project) will begin to extract gas off the northern coast of Mozambique in 2022 through a floating platform.
