Maputo, Feb. 11, 2026 (Lusa) - Mozambique's Energy Minister Estêvão Pale has said that Chinese state oil company CNOOC will begin hydrocarbon exploration in March, drilling up to six blocks of the concession awarded in the sixth tender, launched in 2021.
"They will start very soon. In March, they will begin preparations to start exploration," said the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Estêvão Pale, when questioned by journalists at the Mining Indaba conference, which has been taking place since Monday in Cape Town, South Africa.
"At the moment, we are in the initial phase, with another five to six blocks," he added, referring to the drilling to be carried out by the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) in deep waters in the Rovuma Basin, in the north of the country.
On 26 March 2024, Mozambique's government approved five concession contracts for the production of hydrocarbons, essentially natural gas, in the country, the spokesperson at that time for the cabinet announced.
These are contracts relating to the Save (S6-A and S6-B) and Angoche (A6-G, A6-D and A6-E) offshore areas, which are concessionaires to CNOOC Hong Kong and the National Hydrocarbons Company (ENH), said Filimão Suaze, after the meeting of that body in Maputo. The contracts were signed in the same year and have not yet progressed to the drilling phase.
"As part of the implementation of the mineral resources policy (...), the government of Mozambique has continued with actions aimed at seeking more investment for the oil sector," the government spokesman said at the time.
In December 2022, the National Petroleum Institute announced the award of these blocks to CNOOC following the sixth gas and oil exploration tender, launched on 25 November 2021.
The process covered 16 areas of intervention: five in the Rovuma basin, seven in Angoche, two in the Zambezi Delta and two in Save, totalling more than 92,000 square kilometres.
One of the regions, the Rovuma Basin, under the ocean floor off the coast of Cabo Delgado (in the north of the country), already has areas allocated.
The current Minister of Energy, Estêvão Pale, questioned at the same event, assured that Mozambique has no plans for a new round of oil and gas block auctions for now.
"Not now, because we think there are still many areas for direct negotiations, which were part of the last round, that have not been developed. We now have the opportunity to continue discussions and see if we can find another potential partner," he said.
Mozambique has three approved development projects to explore natural gas reserves in the Rovuma basin, one of the largest in the world, off the coast of Cabo Delgado.
Eni's Coral Sul project is the only one in operation since 2022, with investment in a second floating extraction platform, called Coral Norte, approved last October, an investment of US$7.2 billion (€6.2 billion), which from 2028 will double production to 7 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of liquefied natural gas.
After a four-year suspension due to terrorist attacks in Cabo Delgado, the Mozambique LNG (Area 1) project, operated by TotalEnergies, worth $20 billion (€17.4 billion), officially resumed last January and is expected to produce up to 13 mtpa from 2029, followed by the $30 billion (€26.1 billion) Rovuma LNG project (Area 4), operated by ExxonMobil, with 18 mtpa expected after 2030, and whose final investment decision is expected this year.
PVJ/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
