Mozambique: TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil invite maritime service EOIs ahead of 400 annual gas shipments

TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil anticipate moving 400 natural gas ships annually in the Afungi Peninsula, Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, and are proceeding with a joint tender to hire seven support vessels and tugboats. According to the tender, accessed today by Lusa, this is a call for expressions of interest (EOIs) for the provision of maritime services for Area 1 (Mozambique LNG), led by TotalEnergies, and Area 4 (Rovuma LNG), led by ExxonMobil. The latter is still awaiting a final investment decision, although the joint procedure is already underway.

In this tender, the two concessionaires seek “safe, efficient, and reliable services for transport, loading, and unloading” of liquefied natural gas (LNG) “from production sites to global markets.” These services include, in addition to personnel, five tugboats with 80 tonnes of static traction, a pilot boat, and two workboats. The tender already projects the annual movement of 160 LNG tankers and ten condensate tankers for Area 1, and 220 LNG tankers and 15 condensate tankers for Area 4. On 29 January, the Mozambican President projected the start of construction of the Rovuma LNG megaproject in Cabo Delgado, led by the US-based ExxonMobil, within about a year.

“Our Government, in collaboration with the concessionaires, has been taking measures to ensure the sustainability of security measures in Cabo Delgado province and across the country. Therefore, we reaffirm our commitment (…) to ensure that, within the next 12 to 18 months, we will return to this location to witness the start of Rovuma LNG construction,” said Daniel Chapo. The statement was made in Afungi, Cabo Delgado, precisely at the official restart of another LNG megaproject, valued at US$20 billion (€16.9 billion) led by TotalEnergies, nearly five years after a ‘force majeure’ clause was invoked due to extremist attacks, lifted in October by the Area 1 Rovuma Basin consortium.

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ExxonMobil announced on 20 November that it had lifted the ‘force majeure’ declaration for the Cabo Delgado gas megaproject, a key step towards the Final Investment Decision (FID), scheduled for 2026. Confirmation of the decision was made by an official company source, recalling that the Rovuma LNG project – one of the largest in Africa, valued at US$30 billion (€25.4 billion) – had been suspended following attacks in 2021. “We lifted the force majeure declaration for the Rovuma LNG project,” said an ExxonMobil spokesperson, noting the association with TotalEnergies’ megaproject in the same area, with infrastructure sharing planned in Afungi, Palma district. The Mozambican President stated on 12 November that ExxonMobil should proceed before July 2026 with the FID: “In our discussions in Houston [USA, on 29 October] with ExxonMobil, it was clear that as soon as the Total project [which plans infrastructure sharing] resumes, they will also start working with us so that by mid-next year [2026], later in July, there can be ExxonMobil’s investment decision.” ExxonMobil anticipates producing 18 million tonnes per year (mtpa) of LNG in Area 4, the largest projected in Africa.

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