Search This Blog

Wednesday 4 December 2013

Sasol to expand Mozambique gas pipeline

Sasol has started a US$200-million  expansion programme to increase the capacity of its gas pipeline in Mozambique.

Sasol, which produces petroleum and chemical products at its various gas-to-liquids and coal-to-liquid operations stationed in various parts of the world, has over the years raised the capacity of its processing and delivery facilities at the Temane gas fields since production began in 2004.

Through its subsidiary Sasol New Energy, the group and Mozambique’s state power utility, Electricidade de Moçambique, are developing a US$246-million dollar gas-fired power plant that will generate 140MW.


Electricidade de Moçambique is earmarked to be the primary buyer of the power that will feed its national grid.


The expansion of its Mozambique pipeline is expected to raise its throughput from 17-Megajoules per annum to 188Mj/a, and is expected to be completed next year..

NuEnergy pens onshore Gas deal with Mozambique

NuEnergy Gas signed an agreement in Mozambique with an unnamed party to exclusively explore for and develop coal-bed-methane (CBM). Activities will be undertaken in Tete province of Mozambique. The party was not disclosed due to the terms of the agreement.

NuEnergy has access to a specialised drilling rig for CBM which will be mobilised to Mozambique in 2014.

The company said that the onshore resource has options for supply to LNG plants and to inland gas-fired power stations capable of generating electricity for towns and villages. It could also be used for small CNG plants for compression and use as transportation fuel.


NuEnergy has consolidated its area of exploration in Eastern Africa to Mozambique, Malawi, and Tanzania with outstanding potential for unconventional gas discoveries in the region..



Somaliland signs agreement with fourth oil explorer

Somaliland expects to sign an agreement with a fourth international energy company this week to begin exploring for oil in the semi-autonomous region, Energy Minister Hussein Abdi Dualeh said, Bloomberg reports.

An accord with a Middle East-based company, which Dualeh declined to identify, has been completed. The other three companies already operating in the country are London-based Genel Energy, RAK Gas, owned by the government of Ras al-Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates, and Oslo-based DNO International.

“All talks are concluded” with the fourth company, Dualeh said. “It’s just a matter of inking the deal, which hopefully is going to be this month.”


Somaliland, situated at the tip of the Horn of Africa, declared independence from Somalia in 1991, though no country has officially recognised it as a sovereign state. Somaliland and the neighboring region of Puntland are part of a southward extension of the “lucrative geologic framework of the Arabian Gulf” that includes Saudi Arabia, according to Osman Salad Hersi, an associate geology professor at the University of Regina in Canada. Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest oil producer.


Previous attempts to encourage exploration in the region foundered because of perceptions among investors that Somaliland has the same security concerns as neighbouring Somalia, where Islamist militants have been trying to establish an Islamic state since at least 2006.