Gas deposit found in Mozambique

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.