A vessel that was headed for Mozambique’s first offshore production platform changed course and sailed away over the weekend.
The production from the Eni SpA project in Mozambique’s northern waters has been eagerly awaited by energy consumers in Europe in order to help reduce the global gas shortage before the crucial winter heating season. In order to replace Russian gas with LNG, Europe is stepping up its efforts, which has caused spot LNG prices to soar globally.
The British Mentor tanker was scheduled to arrive at the Coral-Sul floating LNG facility, which Italian energy company Eni is commissioning, on August 24. According to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, the vessel changed its course over the weekend and began sailing toward Qalhat, Oman, which is home to another LNG terminal, after drifting off the coast of Mozambique for a couple of days.
The British Mentor is operated by BP Plc, which also has the exclusive right to purchase all of Coral-planned Sul’s annual production of 3.4 million tons. According to a statement made in February by Mozambique’s oil and gas regulator, the project is expected to begin producing in September or October. Requests for comment from Eni and the Mozambican regulator, the Instituto Nacional de Petroleo, went unanswered right away. BP opted against commenting.
According to a statement issued Aug. 19, commissioning activities at Coral-Sul are progressing, and Eni will announce the first exports in due course.
