Eni Advances Coral North Drilling, Eyes Third Mozambique FLNG

Coral South FLNG (Credit: Eni)

Italian energy firm Eni will start drilling up to six development wells from November that will feed gas to its new Coral North floating liquefied natural gas platform offshore Mozambique, a senior executive told Reuters on Thursday.

The project is on track to start production by 2028, doubling the company's output to around 7 million metric tons per annum, Mario Bello, Eni's Head of sub-Saharan Africa said on the sidelines of an energy conference in Cape Town.

"Mozambique actually is a premium gas source. I think geographically it's just perfectly located to fit the premium LNG market that is in the Far East without having a critical transit route," he said in reference to the Iran war that has choked off major gas and oil shipping routes.

Bello said Eni, which previously said it was considering a third FLNG offshore Mozambique due to the country's abundant gas resources in the Rovuma Basin, was currently in the early pre-front-end engineering and design stage on the project.

"And we are evaluating all aspects of the project," Bello said, adding the plan was for a larger platform higher than 5 MTPA.

This process will pave the way towards taking a final investment decision, he said without providing a timeline.

(Reuters - Reporting by Wendell Roelf;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)