South African state-owned oil company PetroSA is in talks with Mozambique to develop a gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant to feed growing demand for diesel in the country and region, a senior official said today.
Gareth Shaw, PetroSA’s business development manager for GTL, said his company was proposing the building of a 40 000 barrels-per-day plant at a cost of around $4 billion.
The plant could feed a growing need for fuels, and diesel in particular, in the southern African region.
Shaw said the plant could use PetroSA’s new low-temperature Fischer-Tropsch technology, which would boost the share of diesel produced in the plant to 70% from 40% seen in other types of GTL technology.
“The industrial growth Mozambiqueis experiencing is driving diesel consumption in this area,” Shaw told a mining and energy conference in Maputo.
Mozambiqueis a net importer of fuel
Mozambique is a net importer of fuel, with some 900 000 tonnes of fuel products brought into the country each year, the national fuels director has said.
Consortia led by US oil and gas producer Anadarko Petroleum andItaly’s Eni have made huge gas discoveries in Mozambique’s Rovuma offshore basin. The country’s total recoverable resources are seen at more than 100 trillion cubic feet, industry officials and analysts have said.
While producers are first likely to build liquefied natural gas plants inMozambique, and some have already announced plans to do so, Shaw said there was scope for a GTL plant after that.
