Coral South was the first project approved by our Area 4 partners for developing gas resources discovered in the Rovuma Basin, off Mozambique’s coast. The project involves producing and selling gas from the southern part of the Coral field, using a floating plant for liquefying natural gas (LNG) with a capacity of 3.4 million tonnes, linked to six subsea gas producing wells.. In 2016, we signed an agreement to sell 100 per cent of LNG production to British Petroleum (BP), and on 1 June 2017, we embarked on the start-up phase of the project, just three years after drilling the last test well. The liquefied gas is sold by us and other Area 4 concessionaires (including CNPC, Galp, Kogas, the Mozambican state company ENH and Exxon Mobil through its operator Mozambique Rovuma Venture S.p.A.) to BP, under a 20-year contract with an optional 10-year extension.
The development activities of Area 4 offshore (Eni’s interest 25%) in 2020 concerned the Coral South gas project, operated by Eni, and the gas discoveries of Mamba Complex where Eni is expected to coordinate the upstream development and production phase and ExxonMobil the construction and operation phase of natural gas liquefaction facilities onshore. The project has reached a progress of more than 80% and the production start-up is expected in 2022.
Eni’s significant progress in reducing the time-to-market of reserves is underpinned by our Coral South flagship project, approved in 2017 just thirty-six months after the finalization of the exploratory campaign and now close to completion with the launch of the FLNG (Floating Liquefied Natural Gas) unit, the first floating LNG plant, whose construction started in 2018 is aligned to the time schedules and budgets, despite the pandemic. The FLNG has reached the Rovuma Basin, off the coast of Mozambique, where it will be connected to underwater production wells by the second half of 2022 for first gas. The project will generate significant revenues for the country, and will create more than 800 new jobs during the operational period.
