Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambican President Daniel Chapo on Wednesday announced an agreement between the Mozambican and Zambian governments for the construction of a pipeline between the central Mozambican port of Beira and the Zambian town of Ndola.
Speaking in Maputo at the opening of the 11th Mozambican Mining and Energy Conference, Chapo said the new pipeline will allow the transport of petroleum products to the Zambian market and reduce the circulation of fuel trucks along Mozambican roads, particularly National Highway Number 6, which connects Beira to Zambia.
Chapo said the pipeline will be commissioned within four years and will involve an investment of 1.5 billion dollars a year. The pipeline will be able to carry 3.5 million tonnes of petroleum products a year. The project includes building storage facilities in both Beira and Ndola.
A second new project is an agreement between the Mozambican publicly owned fuel company Petromoc and the Aiteo Eastern E & P Group to build a modular fuel refinery in Mozambique, capable of processing 200,000 barrels a day of liquid fuels.
Chapo said this project, to be implemented in 24 months, will add storage capacity of 160,000 tonnes of liquid fuels and 24,000 tonnes of LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas).
The refinery, he added, will be equipped with state-of-the-art technology, and will produce petrol, diesel, naphta and jet A1 aircraft fuel, to supply the national and regional markets.
“This is a transformative project”. Chapo said, “which will position Mozambique as a relevant actor in the liquid fuel value chain, with a positive impact on job creation and import substitution”.
With the recent approval of the development plan for a second Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) platform in the Rovuma Basin, off the coast of the northern province of Cabo Delgado, with an investment of about seven billion dollars, Mozambique has already consolidated its position as a strategic supplier of LNG, said the President.
He was optimistic that onshore LNG projects would soon get the green light. These include the Mozambique LNG project, led by the French company TotalEnergies, which has been stalled since 2021 because of a massive raid by Islamist terrorists against the town of Palma,
A second onshore LNG project is Rovuma LNG, led by the US company ExxonMobil, and budgeted at around 27 billion dollars.
These advances, Chapo said, “reflect not only the robust nature of our reserves, but above all the environment of credibility, security and reform that we are consolidating in attracting private business to stimulate our economy, while always guaranteeing that our natural resources serve the interests of the Mozambican people”.
The extractive sector of the Mozambican economy is continuing to grow, stressed Chapo. Mining production grew by 12 per cent in 2024. As for energy, Chapo said that in 2024 there were 563,833 new connections to the electricity grid.
Over the year, the number of Mozambicans with access to electricity rose from 53.4 to 60.1 per cent of the population.
For More News And Analysis About Mozambique Follow Africa-Press
