The Japanese company Tohoku Electric said on Monday it has signed a sales and purchase agreement to buy up to 280,000 metric tonnes a year of liquefied natural gas (LNG) a year from Mozambique.
The gas will come from the LNG project developed by the consortium headed by the US company Anadarko in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado.
Tohoku Electric said it expects to purchase LNG from the Anadarko LNG project on an ex-ship basis for 15 years when it comes onstream in the early 2020s. The company added that the Mozambique LNG supply will not only help diversify its supply sources but also improve its supply stability and economics.
It said that its Mozambique LNG contract has some flexibility in its lifting volumes, which allows it to change its procurement volumes, depending on its LNG supply and demand balance.
Anadarko said in September that it remains on target for a final investment decision for the Mozambique LNG project, in the first half of 2019. This timeframe was announced after two other sales deals with Centrica of the UK, and Japan’s Tokyo Gas.
The project consists of an initial two liquefaction plants (known as “trains”) to be built on the Afungi Peninsula in Cabo Delgado’s Palma district. Construction is expected to start by the end of 2019, with the first LNG produced by 2023.
The two trains will have a total production capacity of 12.88 million tonnes of LNG a year. The gas will be piped to the Afungi Peninsula from the offshore Golfinho and Atum fields which lie entirely within Area One of the Rovuma Basin, where Anadarko is the operator.
