adminMaputo. – Mozambique’s national oil company plans to increase its share in fields operated by Anadarko Petrolium Corp and Eni Sp as the country seeks a greater share of profit from the largest natural gas find in a decade. “We are trying to see how we can increase our participation in the projects,” Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos director of engineering and projects engineering Paulino Gregorio said in an interview in the capital, Maputo.
“Of course, we have financial constraints.”
His remarks reinforce statements by chief executive Mr Nelson Ocuane in June seeking to end speculation that Mozambique was about to sell to a foreign buyer.
ONGC Videsh Ltd, a unit of India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp., later agreed to buy a 10 percent stake from Anadarko for US$2,64 billion. ENH holds 15 percent of the Rovuma-1 field operated by Anadarko and 10 percent of four fields operated by Eni.
Anadarko’s Texas-based spokesman Brian Cain declined to comment and Filippo Cotalini in Milan for Eni didn’t immediately answer a call to his phone.
Mozambique plans to build four liquefied natural gas plants with a total capacity of 20 million metric tonnes a year by 2018. The development may cost US$20 billion and could be the world’s largest LNG export site after Ras Laffan in Qatar.
ENH will base its decision primarily on technical ability when it selects the winning bidder to build the gas plants and the pipelines connecting them to the field by the middle of next year, Gregorio said.
International Bechtel Co, Chicago Bridge & Iron Company NV and Chiyoda Corp; and a venture between JGC Corp and Fluor Transworld Services Inc are bidding to build the LNG plants, Gregorio said. – Bloomberg.
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