ENH DENIES PLANNING TO SELL ROVUMA GAS STAKE

The publicly owned Mozambican Hydrocarbon Company (ENH) has announced that it is not currently seeking to sell any of its stake in the country’s gas fields.However, it has admitted that it has been approached by companies interested in buying into Offshore Area 1 and 4, situated in the Rovuma Basin off the northern coast of Cabo Delgado province.According to the chairperson of ENH, Nelson Ocuane, cited in the daily newspaper “Noticias”, the mission given to the company by the Mozambican government is to enhance its participation and to create the basis for the company to transform itself over the next twenty to thirty years into a hydrocarbon operator.

Ocuane stressed that “we have a mandate to structure the financing and maximise our participation in the blocks, and prepare the company so that in a few years we can be a project operator in research, exploration, processing and commercialisation”.He was responding to recent media reports that ENH was considering divesting some of its fifteen per cent stake in Offshore Area 1, where the US based company Anadarko is the operator.Ocuane stated “what we have proposed to companies that have contacted us, and who would like to participate in the development of natural gas in the Rovuma Basin, is that this can be done through the stakes that are offered for sale - such as when Cove Energy sold its shares”.Asked about plans for the company’s holdings, Nelson Ocuane said that these will eventually be sold to Mozambican investors in line with the government policy of promoting the entry of nationals into hydrocarbon projects.So far, up to 65 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas has been found in the group of natural gas fields contained within Offshore Area 1. Several companies are interested in taking a stake in Offshore Area 1.On Monday the Indian state owned company Oil and Natural Gas Corporation announced that, together with Oil India Limited, it was going to buy out the ten per cent stake owned by Videocon Mauritius Energy for 2.5 billion US dollars.However, to the company’s great embarrassment, the announcement was withdrawn within hours as the deal has not been finalised.In April the Algerian state owned hydrocarbon company Sonatrach announced that it was seeking a stake in Offshore Areas 1 and 4 through bidding for a proportion of the part of the two licences held by ENH.Although ENH has made clear that it is not looking to sell, there are other options. Anadarko has indicated that it is willing to sell a ten per cent stake in Offshore Area 1.Meanwhile, planning is underway for the construction of onshore facilities in Mozambique to liquefy the gas so that it can be shipped to market. Anadarko hopes to bring this online in 2018, and estimates that it could make Mozambique the third largest exporter of LNG after Qatar and Australia.