AfrOil: ExxonMobil looking to restart and expand Rovuma LNG project

ExxonMobil (US) is looking to restart and expand the Rovuma LNG project in the restive Cabo Delgado Province in northern Mozambique. The company has called for expressions of interest (EoI) to design and construct an 18mn-tonne per year (tpy) onshore LNG plant, according to a statement published in the Mozambican newspaper O Pais on March 17.

Initial plans had called for the Rovuma LNG consortium to build a plant with two liquefaction trains and a nameplate capacity of 15.2mn tpy. The facility was to produce, liquefy and market natural gas from three reservoirs of the Mamba complex, a section of the Area 4 block in the offshore Rovuma basin.

Work on Rovuma LNG has been stalled since spring 2021 due to the terrorist attacks in the region that forced Mozambique LNG, a separate consortium led by TotalEnergies (France), to declare force majeure. Now that security conditions have improved slightly, though, ExxonMobil is seeking a contractor capable of providing front-end engineering and design (FEED) services for its own LNG project.