Good afternoon. There is good news in today’s newsletter for the gas industry in Mozambique, with a final investment decision all but confirmed for the Coral North floating LNG project, and confirmation that the LPG production facility in Inhambane will begin operations before the end of the year.

Of course you can’t win them all, and oil and gas exploration is hit and miss. That’s why another Eni-led consortium has handed back an offshore block in the Angoche Basin, as Zitamar News reveals today.

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But more concerning for the sector in Mozambique is the glacial pace at which the Mozambican state is moving to encourage more exploration. The A5-A block, which Eni has now given up on, was awarded in 2015, but the exploration concession was not signed until 2018 — by which time one of the stakeholders, Norway’s Statoil, had given up. Another block that Eni won in 2022 is still waiting for the go-ahead from the Administrative Court.