Mozambique announces its first liquefied natural gas exports

Mozambique, a southern African country, has officially started exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG), amid an energy crisis in Europe caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine, President Filipe Nyusi announced on Sunday.

“It is with great honor that I announce the start of the first liquefied natural gas export,” President Nyusi said in a video statement.

The first cargo of gas was produced at the Coral Sul offshore plant, managed by the Italian group Eni, added the Head of State, welcoming that his country is thus entering « the annals of world history » .

After the invasion of Ukraine, Russia drastically reduced its gas supplies to Europe. Many states are competing for access to liquefied natural gas. But this gas is much more expensive to import than that which arrived via the gas pipelines between Russia and Europe.

Mozambique has high hopes for vast deposits of natural gas, the largest ever discovered south of the Sahara, which were discovered in northern Cabo Delgado province in 2010.

Once exploited, these deposits could make Mozambique one of the ten largest exporters in the world.

But the poor province of Cabo Delgado, with a Muslim majority, is plagued by attacks by jihadist groups which have killed nearly 4,000 people since October 2017, according to the NGO Acled, which collects data in conflict zones. The violence also caused the flight of 820,000 people.

A major attack in 2021 in the coastal city of Palma forced the French giant TotalEnergies to suspend its gas project worth 16.5 billion euros ($22.6 billion).

In September, the Mozambican president, however, considered it « relevant » to provide for a resumption of activity on future natural gas production sites in the north of the country.

The country went through a long civil war which lasted fifteen years after the departure of the Portuguese settler in 1975 and caused nearly a million deaths.

After a peace agreement in 1992, the rebellion had become a political party. In 2013, the rebels took up arms again, until a new agreement in 2019.