Exxon Mobil promises to take final LNG investment decision in 2025
The Rovuma Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) export project, in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, led by the Exxon Mobil Corporation of the United States, is on track to gain final approval in 2025, according to the Bloomberg agency.
According to Bloomberg, citing an Exxon Mobil senior vice president, Peter Clarke, who was speaking, on Wednesday, at a conference held in Vancouver, “it very much depends on the security situation, which has been very well managed”.
“The government is doing a good job and we expect to see more positive news in that regard later in the year”, Clarke added.
This is the first time ExxonMobil has laid out a clear timeline for the project, including reviving plans to build the onshore liquefaction plant halted in 2020, when the security situation worsened in the region due to Islamist terrorism that has been plaguing Cabo Delgado since 2017.
An approval by 2025 would put the project on track to start LNG production by the end of the decade.
Initially conceived as a plant to produce 15.2 million tonnes of LNG per year, ExxonMobil now envisions a plant that will produce up to 18 million tonnes.
“ExxonMobil aims to nearly double its Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) portfolio, which currently stands at 24 million tonnes per year worldwide, by 2030 through new projects, joint ventures or third-party purchase agreements”, Clarke said.
Clarke also said that a Papua New Guinea LNG project has advanced to the front-end engineering and design phase.
“A final investment decision could be made for the six million tonnes a year plant in early 2024 and it could start production in 2028”, he said.
