30 May 2016, Maputo – The South African petro-chemical giant Sasol has announced that on Thursday it began to drill its first well under its field development plan (FDP) for the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) in the southern Mozambican province of Inhambane.
The FDP was approved by the Mozambican government in January. Sasol already operates the Pende and Temane natural gas fields, and pumps gas along a pipeline across southern Mozambique to the Sasol chemical plants in the South African city of Secunda.
Sasol described the new PSA as “an integrated oil, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and gas project”. Shortly after obtaining Mozambican government approval, Sasol commissioned a drilling rig from French-based drilling contractor Société de Maintenance Pétrolière which arrived in Maputo on 19 March.
A statement from Sasol says 13 wells will be drilled during the initial phase of the FDP, while oil and LPG production facilities will be installed near the existing gas processing plant at Temane. A fifth gas processing train will be added at Temane to process the additional gas expected from the new wells.
The Sasol statement says the first phase of the PSA Development will cost about 1.4 billion US dollars.
It claims that “Phase 1 development represents the optimal development of four of the PSA geological layers in a safe and sustainable manner to the benefit of all stakeholders. The utilisation of existing infrastructure in the area enables the safe and efficient use of resources, while the development in tranches of the complex reservoirs is a prudent approach for timely de-risking of subsurface resources and maximisation of overall project value”.
– Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique
