First LNG shipment leaves west Africa

Mozambique has made its first liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipment, the country’s president announced on November 14. The first batch of LNG produced at the country’s offshore Coral Sul facility has left Mozambique's territorial waters, Filipe Nyusi said.

“Today, Mozambique enters the annals of world history as one of the exporting countries of LNG,” Nyusi said in a video statement, as cited by AFP news agency, according to Russia Today.

The plant is managed by the Italian company Eni, and according to Nyusi, the shipment was ordered by British oil major BP.

Mozambique has the largest natural gas deposits south of the Sahara Desert, holding roughly 2.8 trillion cubic meters of proven reserves or around 1% of the world’s total. They were discovered in the country’s northern Cabo Delgado province in 2010. Estimates show that given the extent of the deposits, the country could become one of the world's 10 biggest LNG exporters. According to data from Statista.com, Mozambique could also become Africa’s third-largest exporter of fuel after Algeria and Nigeria.

Coral Sul can produce 3.4 million tons of LNG per year. However, the plant is the only one of three large energy projects in Mozambique currently in operation. The remaining two, operated by France’s TotalEnergies and US oil giant ExxonMobil, have been halted due to political instability in the country.