Sasol and Mozambique's state-owned oil and gas company ENH have signed a memorandum of understanding covering a joint assessment of a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal in southern Mozambique. The concept under study is a terminal based on a floating storage and regasification unit, or FSRU, rather than a fully shore-based facility. The agreement covers the assessment stage of the project rather than a commitment to construct.
Sasol is a South African petrochemicals company, while ENH is Mozambique's state-owned oil and gas company. The memorandum frames the two companies' next step as a shared feasibility study for the terminal concept. As announced, it contains no capacity figure, site detail, timeline or investment commitment.
An FSRU is a vessel that stores LNG in cryogenic tanks aboard and regasifies it for send-out, generally through a pipeline to shore. Because storage and regasification sit on the vessel, an FSRU-based terminal needs less permanent construction on land than a conventional receiving plant, and the unit can in principle be redeployed if demand patterns change. That is the configuration Sasol and ENH have agreed to examine for the southern Mozambique location.
A feasibility memorandum sits at the start of the project cycle. Work under it would address technical, commercial and regulatory questions before any decision on engineering, contracting or financing, and a positive outcome would be a precondition for the concept to advance. The companies have not said how long the assessment will take. For the region's gas sector, the study will show whether new LNG receiving infrastructure could take shape on the Mozambican coast, and it marks the point at which site selection, marine access and offloading arrangements enter the discussion.
Source: LNG Prime
