ONGC Videsh - a wholly owned subsidiary of ONGC, the Indian national oil company, has won Mozambique Governmental approval for its Golfinho-Atum natural gas field’s development plan.
The plan outlines the integrated development of the Golfinho-Atum field, located in Area 1 block of the Rovuma offshore basin, through an initial two train onshore liquefaction plant with a total processing capacity of 12.88 mill tonnes per annum.
The green light is the culmination of several years of progress on the development’s technical and commercial aspects.
Golfinho-Atum will also supply initial volumes of around 100 mill cu ft of natural gas per day for domestic sales for Mozambique’s industrial development, which will have significant socio-economic impact, the company said.
This initial project also paves the way for significant future expansion of up to 50 mill tonnes per annum from Offshore Area 1.
Area 1 is located in the deepwater Rovuma basin offshore Mozambique and is one of the largest gas discoveries in offshore East Africa with estimated recoverable resources of about 75 trill cu ft.
ONGC Videsh holds a 16% net interest in the project of which 10% is held directly by the company, while another 6% is held through its 60% shareholding in Beas Rovuma Energy Mozambique Limited (BREML), with the remaining 40% shares in BREML held by Oil India Limited (OIL).
Anadarko Petroleum Corp is the project’s operator with 26.5% and the other partners in the project are Mitsui (20%), ENH (15%), BPRL (10%) and PTTEP (8.5%).
With the approval of major legal and contractual framework agreements and the start of resettlement implementation activities and site preparation, the approval of the development plan is a significant milestone in the project’s further progress towards achieving final investment decision (FID), ONGC said.
At present, ONGC Videsh has 39 projects in 18 countries, including Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Kazakhstan, Mozambique, Myanmar, Russia, South Sudan, Sudan, Venezuela, Vietnam and New Zealand.
