AfrOil: Saipem CEO sees Mozambique LNG resuming work in July 2023

Alessandro Puliti, the CEO of the Italian oilfield services provider (OSP) Saipem, says work on the Mozambique LNG project, led by France’s TotalEnergies, will resume this summer. “We expect to gradually restart the project, according to the information received by our clients, starting from July this year,” Puliti informed analysts during Saipem’s 2022 earnings call on February 28.

He went on to say that Saipem had already worked out an agreement in principle with the French major on the renegotiation of certain sections of the Mozambique LNG contract. This should help “derisk the initial phase of the project resumption in the best interest of Saipem and TotalEnergies, prior to return to the fixed contract for project completion,” he commented.

Saipem is the leader of the CCS group, which is providing engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for the Mozambique LNG consortium. It has teamed up with McDermott International (US) and Chiyoda (Japan) to implement €3.5bn ($3.72bn) worth of work on the consortium’s onshore natural gas-processing facility.