Qatar Petroleum buys into Eni’s offshore block in Mozambique

Qatar Petroleum has signed a deal to farm into Eni’s Block A5A in the Angoche basin offshore Mozambique. Qatari state-owned oil and gas company will acquire a 25 percent interest.

Once the deal has been approved by the relevant authorities, Eni, the operator, will have a 34% participating interest, Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH) a 15% participating interest, Sasol a 25.5% participating interest, and Qatar Petroleum a 25.5% participating interest.

Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, and President & CEO of Qatar Petroleum said: “We are pleased to sign this agreement, with our valuable partner Eni, to participate in exploring this frontier offshore basin and strengthen our presence in Mozambique. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Mozambican authorities and our partners in this block for their cooperation and support”.

Al-Kaabi added: “By entering into this new agreement, we aim at expanding our exploration portfolio to ensure diversification of geographies as well as geologies and basins. Having a large and diversified exploration portfolio is a key long-term objective for Qatar Petroleum and essential for success.”

Block A5A lies in the Angoche basin and is located adjacent to block A5B for which an affiliate of Qatar Petroleum entered into an agreement in December 2018 with an ExxonMobil affiliate to acquire a 10% participating interest.

The Block A5A, officially awarded to Eni in October 2018, covers a total area of around 5,133 km2 in water depths ranging from about 300 to 1,800 meters in a completely unexplored zone in front of the town of Angoche.

The block was awarded back in 2015, but negotiations with the government took more than two years. To remind, the Norwegian oil company Statoil (now Equinor) was to be awarded 25 percent in the block, but it in January 2018, said it would not continue with negotiations citing a lack of progress after years of talks.

While the Block A5A is underexplored, the partners will be hoping to replicate earlier exploration successes made at Area 4 in the offshore Rovuma basin, where between 2011 and 2014 the supergiant gas fields of Coral, Mamba and Agulha were discovered, with estimated 2,407 billion cubic meters of gas in place.

Coral initial development program includes the construction of a floating plant (FLNG), to treat, liquefy, store and offload LNG. The plant will have a liquefaction capacity of approximately 3.4 million tons per year. Construction has started in June 2017 production is expected to start in 2022.

The Mamba Complex development program includes the construction of an onshore plant composed by 2 trains for gas treatment and liquefaction, with a liquefaction capacity of 15.2 million tons per year. The project is expected to be sanctioned in 2019 and production is expected to start in 2024.