The London-headquartered law firm, Linklaters, has advised Eni and its Area 4 partners, CNPC, ENH, Galp and KOGAS on the project financing for the $8bn Coral South floating (LNG) project in Mozambique.
According to the law firm’s statement, it is the largest project financing in Africa to date and the first project financing of an FLNG facility.
The floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) unit will have a capacity of around 3.4 million tons per year. It is expected to be East Africa’s first floating LNG production project.
The Coral field, discovered in May 2012, is located within Area 4 and contains approximately 450 billion cubic meters (16 TCF) of gas in place.
In October 2016, Eni and its Area 4 partners signed an agreement with BP for the sale of the entire volumes of LNG produced by the Coral South project for a period of over twenty years.
Eni is the operator of Area 4, through its participation in Eni East Africa (EEA), which holds a 70 percent participating interest in the concession while Portugal’s Galp Energia, South Korea’s Kogas and Mozambique’s Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH), each hold 10 percent stake.
Eni holds 71.4 percent shares of Eni East Africa with China’s CNPC holding 28.6 percent, however, in March 2017 Eni signed an agreement to sell 50 percent of its shares in EEA to ExxonMobil.