Maputo - Italian energy firm ENI on Wednesday announced a new
natural gas discovery of up to 10 trillion cubic feet off the Mozambican
coast.
"This discovery is particularly significant since it
confirms a new exploration play, which is independent of those drilled
so far in previous Mamba wells," ENI said in a statement.
The new fields are located in the deep-water Rovuma
basin off Mozambique's Cabo Delgado coast, close to where American
Anadarko Petroleum announced finds twice as large on Tuesday.
The deposits at a depth of close to 5 000 metres below
sea level boosted the total ENI estimates of its Mamba fields to up to
52 trillion cubic feet, the company said.
ENI's discovery brings natural gas finds so far by
multinational corporations in Mozambique's Rovuma basin to over 80
trillion cubic feet, as the country emerges as a new natural gas
frontier.
Mozambique lies at the southern tip of a fault line
running along the east African coast to Somalia, forming a geologically
inviting region for natural gas that has become the focus of an
exploration boom in recent years.