Mozambique 3 Dec: Great potential, but where are the results?
Good morning. The Mozambique Gas Summit, from Wednesday to Friday last week, provided an opportunity to reflect on how much has changed since the event was last held two years ago. The answer: not a lot. Time is running out for Eni to take a Final Investment Decision on FLNG this year, and it would be a brave man who bet on Anadarko’s onshore LNG project reaching FID before 2018.
While the Rovuma offshore projects attract most attention, work is quietly moving forward on the Rovuma Onshore block. Canada’s Wentworth Resources, which is successfully operating a gas project on the Tanzanian side of the River Rovuma, wants to repeat the feat in Cabo Delgado.
SEE: Canadian oil and gas company tenders for Mozambique seismic survey
There was at least one thing for journalists to get excited about at the Gas Summit - ‘Agent C’, aka Mateus Zimba, the man allegedly at the centre of an $800,000 bribery scandal, was there manning the stand for his current employer, General Electric. Zimba, all smiles and no comments, repeatedly turned down the chance to deny involvement in the dodgy Embraer deal, but clearly seemed confident that his personal liberty was not in danger.
SEE: GE’s Zimba refuses to comment on Mozambique airline corruption allegations
South-east Africa’s drought over the last two years has had a predictable effect on Cahora Bassa dam, the hydroelectric plant that keeps the lights on in Mozambique and its neighbours Zimbabwe and South Africa. The dam is at an unprecedented low, and electricity production will almost certainly be cut again next year.
SEE: Cahora Bassa braces for further cuts as water hits unprecedented lows
Brazilian miner Vale’s latest financial results show that it has, as predicted, finally turned a profit in Mozambique. The news comes in the week that Rio Tinto admitted it is being investigated for the way it wrote off almost $3bn of its investment in Mozambican coal - so Vale’s results might be an uncomfortable coincidence for the executives who took that decision in 2012.
SEE: Vale turns a profit in Mozambique as new coal mine ramps up
Also this week, Fitch became the first of the major global ratings agencies to judge Mozambique to already be in default.
SEE: Mozambique is in default, says rating agency Fitch
Have a great weekend.