IN ROVUMA BASIN, WORK UNDER WAY ON SIZE OF GAS RESERVES

The piece of grey sandstone in my hands does not look very special – but it is 40 million years old, and came from about three and a half kilometres under my feet.I am standing on the deck of the drilling vessel, the “Belford Dolphin” about 30 kilometres east of the small northern Mozambican port of Mocimboa da Praia. This is where the Houston-based oil and gas company, Anadarko, has drilled its sixth offshore well.This well, code-named “Lagosta”, was the fourth of the Anadarko wells to indicate large reserves of natural gas in the rocks lying under 1,500 metres of water. Now smaller holes are being drilled alongside the main well shaft, to extract samples of the rock.This is known as “coring”. Rock cores are extracted, including the lump of grey sandstone that one of the engineers thrust into my hands. From hundreds of metres below the sea bed, the cores will show the rock structure and composition, and give some indication of the ease (or difficulty) of extracting the gas.Broken into carefully labeled chunks indicating the depth at which they were taken, the cores will be sent off to specialist laboratories for analysis.

Anadarko has kept the “Belford Dolphin” in the Rovuma Basin, near the border with Tanzania, for the past 18 months, moving from one well site to the next. The four gas discoveries made so far lead Anadarko to believe that it is feasible to establish a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Facility, which can handle a billion cubic feet of gas a day.The Rovuma Basin gas, plus the giant open cast coal mines under development in Tete province, and the plans for more hydro-electric dams, mean that within less than a decade Mozambique will be established as a major producer and exporter of energy. Anadarko intends to continue drilling elsewhere in its concession area, and a second drilling vessel will join the “Belford Dolphin” later in the year. A third may be needed in 2012. The company is optimistic that it will make further gas discoveries, and perhaps also strike oil.By the end of 2013, the Anardako investment in the Rovuma Basin will have reached three billion US dollars. If, as seems more than likely, the Mozambican government gives the green light to the LNG plant, total investment will reach 18 billion dollars by 2018, the earliest feasible date for starting production.

The “Belford Dolphin”, built in 2000 in a Korean shipyard, is owned by the Norwegian company, Fred Olsen Energy. Companies have hired it for drilling work across the globe, and in very different climates – it has previously worked in Brazil, Trinidad, the Faroe Islands, Indonesia, the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa.It could drill in water that is over 3,000 metres deep, and to a total depth of rock of 12,000 metres. It is not anchored to the sea bed, but is held in place by five variable thrusters, controlled by computers. There are 130 crew members, working 12 hour shifts. They stay on the vessel for 28 days then take the next 28 days off. They are from all over the world – at one point 23 different nationalities were counted on board the ship. Currently there are between 16 and 18 (the officer speaking to us is not sure of the exact figure), with the largest contingents from India, the Philippines and Britain.The most important Mozambican contribution to the “Belford Dolphin” is its security. Anadarko has hired two security vessels, keeping a discreet distance from the drilling ship. On board are armed marines from the Mozambican navy.This is a precaution against gangs of Somali pirates. It used to be thought that the pirates would not operate as far south as the Mozambique Channel, but a series of attacks in December destroyed that comfortable illusion.

The most serious was the hijacking of the Mozambican fishing vessel the “Vega 5”, off the coast of Inhambane province, on 27 December. The 24 crew members (19 Mozambicans, three Indonesians and two Spaniards) were taken hostage, and the ship was converted into a pirate “mother ship” used as a base for attacks on shipping in the Arabian sea, until it was overpowered in a fire fight with the Indian navy in March. The waters around Mocimboa da Praia seem virtually deserted – no shipping is spotted on the helicopter flight from the coast to the “Belford Dolphin”. But no chances are being taken: the security vessels are on permanent standby, and the “Belford Dolphin”’s own radar ceaselessly scours the horizon.Throughout the ship there are warnings against polluting the marine environment. Nothing can be thrown overboard. All waste generated on the ship is taken ashore for disposal in Anadarko’s waste processing facility, on the outskirts of the city of Pemba. Here an incinerator destroys what can safely be burnt, while other types of waste are carefully sorted into different categories for possible recycling or disposal elsewhere.

Anadarko is at pains to establish credentials as a company that cares for its workforce and for the environment. Asked about the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the largest marine oil spill in history, the Anadarko-Mozambique Managing Director, John Peffer, blamed it on “poor planning” and remarked drily “we don’t think we will suffer the same fate”.Clearly natural gas operations cannot cause the same level of pollution as an oil well – but Anadarko is also looking for oil offshore. So would an Anadarko oil well in the Rovuma Basin be just as much of a threat to the marine environment as the BP operation on the Deepwater Horizon?While careful not to criticize any other company by name, Peffer remarks “We don’t operate that way”.Anadarko, he added, was also confident of the professionalism of its contractors. The equipment they are using “is top notch”, said Peffer, “and has performed extremely well”.