Eni SPA and Mozambique signed drilling, construction, and installation contracts for project implementation of Coral South LNG in Rovuma basin’s Area 4. A 3.4-million tonne/year floating LNG (FLNG) vessel will produce Coral South—roughly 50 km offshore near the Tanzania border in 2,000 m of water—starting in 2022.
Eni let a contract to JGC Corp.—in partnership with TechnipFMC and Samsung Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. (SHI)—for the FLNG’s construction. The lump-sum turnkey contract covers engineering, procurement, construction, installation, and commissioning.
A joint venture of JGC and TechnipFMC will be responsible mainly for the engineering and procurement work for the FLNG’s topsides and management of the overall project. Consortium partner SHI will cover EPC work for the FLNG hull and fabrication of the topsides.
Fifteen major international banks are financing 60% of FLNG construction with guarantees from five export credit agencies.
JGC also is handling EPC work for Petronas’s FLNG project offshore Malaysia.
Coral field, discovered in May 2012, contains about 450 billion cu m (16 tcf) of gas in place. Coral South’s final exploration well was drilled in 2014. In October 2016, Eni and its Area 4 partners signed an agreement with BP PLC for the sale of all LNG produced by the Coral South project for more than 20 years. One month later Eni authorized investment in the field (OGJ Online, Nov. 18, 2016).
Eni operates Area 4, through Eni East Africa (EEA), which holds a 70% participating interest in the concession. Portugal’s Galp Energia, South Korea’s Kogas, and Mozambique’s Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH), each have 10% stakes. Eni holds 71.4% of EEA with China National Petroleum Corp. holding the remaining 28.6%. In March Eni signed an agreement to sell 50% of its shares in EEA to ExxonMobil Corp., to be completed subject to satisfaction regulatory and governmental conditions.