Money for gas investments

The president of Mozambique’s National Petroleum Institute yesterday said that the National Hydrocarbons Company should make more of an effort to obtain the financing needed to enter Mozambique’s gas exploitation projects, attributing its difficulties in obtaining financing in part to “internal factors”.

“They [National Hydrocarbons Company] are going to have to make an effort to get this financing,” Carlos Zacarias said at a press conference in Maputo.

The National Hydrocarbons Company (ENH) is part of the natural gas consortium led by the US-based Anadarko, and, under consortium agreements, has to finance its participation in the US$25 billion (EUR 21.97 billion) project by raising US$2.3 billion (about two billion euros). Earlier this month, ENH announced that it has decided to postpone raising the necessary amount to the end of the year, waiting for Mozambique, which is currently in default, to reach final agreement with its public debt creditors during the summer. This would make financing conditions in the international markets less onerous for the government and public enterprises. Zacarias also said the difficulties that ENH was facing in obtaining funds were specific to the company itself.

“When we go to a bank, they always ask for certain requirements. Of course, ENH is different from its partners: it is a relatively new company in the oil and gas sector,” he noted. The Mozambique government has already issued a sovereign guarantee on this operation, but the fact that it is in default on public debt securities of US$727.5 million (EUR 649 million) and has not repaid two loans taken out by public companies has made ENH’s appeal to the markets more expensive.