East Africa gas race turns to new areas

摘要

Big gas finds and LNG projects in Mozambique and Tanzania have spurred exploration for offshore oil and gas around the Indian Ocean islands of the Comoros,Madagascar and the Seychelles. The discovery of over 200 trillion ft3 (5.7 trillion m3)of gas resources in the Mozambique Channel and southern Tan-zanian waters by firms including US inde-pendent Anadarko Petroleum,Italy’s Eni, the UK’s BG,and Norway’s state-con-trolled Statoil has sparked exploration interest in the tiny Comoros.UK-based Discover Exploration this month secured approval from the Comoros national assembly for production-sharing contracts (PSCs)in deepwater blocks 35,36 and 37. Discover estimates the blocks are“on trend”with Mozambique’s block 1 and 4, which will be the basis of an initial 10mn t/yr LNG project(WPA,14 March,p9).