Mozambique Oil and Gas: Regulations and Opportunities

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Mozambique has being recently placed among the global major players in the oil & gas sector. This new position is due to significant natural gas discoveries in the country’s northern Rovuma Basin. Despite having activity in the hydrocarbons sector for many decades, just in 2012 these massive offshore started to transform Mozambique’s reality. They added ambitious expectations to the country to become a key player in the LNG global market. Some optimistic reports project that Mozambique will emerge as the third-largest exporter of LNG within the next decade, holding one of two largest natural gas reserves in Africa and one of the seven largest in the globe, with estimated 200tcf.

Currently, the natural gas production is concentrated in onshore fields of Pande/Temane in the country’s center-southern region. The produced natural gas has South Africa as major destination through a pipeline. Delivery points within the Mozambican portion of the pipeline also feed gas-to-power projects. In the Rovuma Basin region, Areas 1 and 4 are being developed to accommodate large-scale LNG projects destined to the international market. Additionally, a share of the produced natural gas will be allocated to boost the domestic industrial sector, including gas-to-liquids, gas-to-power and fertilizing projects.

In addition to the natural gas reservoirs, it worth to highlight that Mozambique has shown over the last two decades an impressive economic growth of 7,5% on average; and, is expected to be one of the African countries with the highest GDP growth in the following years with the taking off of the natural gas projects.

An extract from Bouncing Back: African Oil and Gas. Please download by clicking: INTO AFRICA PUBLICATION: MAY 2018 EDITION.

Contributor’s Profile
Paulo Rage is a Partner of of T&C Mayer Brown and Director of the Brazil-Mozambique Chamber of Commerce. He has significant experience in legal planning and structuring for complex cross-border projects, involving the following sectors: infrastructure (construction & engineering), energy (oil & gas and power), mining and heavy industries. He represented several multinational companies in transactions thru different jurisdictions in MEA markets, especially in Sub-Saharan and Lusophone African countries, such as: Mozambique, Angola and South Africa.