A typical Moblize multi-application architecture that is truly vendor-neutral can acquire and transmit any relevant field data in standard WITSML, PRODML or other data formats.

Mozambique introduced its third licensing round with a positive growth in natural gas and exploration in progress from substantial world players who see the country’s opportunities.The latest offering, opened Dec. 6, put up 7,722 sq miles (20,000 sq km) of onshore properties west of the country’s only commercial production in the Pande and Temane fields. It also offers three times that much offshore property in the Mozambique Basin off the Zambezi River Delta.

The terms are attractive, with a corporate income tax of 32% of net profits, a 10% royalty on oil and a 6% royalty on natural gas.

The International Monetary Fund praised the government’s handling of the economy last year, and it implemented a new mining and petroleum fiscal regime last May.

The licensing closes on June 1 this year. Information is available at www.inp-mz.com.

A company can get a reconnaissance license that will hold a property for two years while it does basic exploration work. Or it can get exploration and production licenses. The exploration license holds the property for eight years and, if commercial production proves up, the production license is good for another 30 years.

As an indicator of the potential some companies see in Mozambique, take a look at the previous licensing round, which opened in 2005 and closed in 2006. That round offered onshore and offshore properties only in the Rovuma Basin on the northern border of the country adjoining successful drilling in Tanzania.

Artumas Group of Canada picked up the onshore block. Anadarko Petroleum picked up Area 1, a 2.64-million-acre concession onshore and offshore on the northern border of Mozambique. Some 90,000 acres of that property is onshore, and it reaches 35 miles (56 km) offshore to water depths of 6,000 ft (1,800 m). The block is roughly 100 miles (160 km) long from north to south.

At the time of that award in late 2006, Bob Daniels, senior vice president of worldwide exploration for Anadarko, said, “Offshore Area 1 is a ground-floor opportunity to explore the highly prospective Rovuma Basin, where only two wells have ever been drilled.

We are very pleased to have signed this contract to explore for oil and gas in Mozambique. Through our regional evaluation and analysis of existing seismic data covering most of the block, we have already identified multiple leads across an area equivalent in size to 460 typical Gulf of Mexico blocks.”

Anadarko and Artumas later signed an agreement to cooperate on exploration with Anadarko as operator on both tracts. Artumas received 8.5% of Anadarko’s offshore tract and Anadarko got 37.5% of the onshore block. The two companies plan US $300 million in exploration spending.

Artumas also has a concession for the Mnazi Bay gas field in the same basin in southern Tanzania.
Eni received Area 4 offshore from Anadarko.

Immediately to the south of those offshore blocks, Norsk Hydro had obtained areas 2 and 5 in a previous round. South of the Norsk Hydro properties, Malaysia state oil company Petronas took areas 3 and 6.

In southern Mozambique, Sasol is developing its Pande and Temane gas fields with 2.7 Tcf and 1 Tcf of gas reserves, respectively. Sasol currently is working a 27-well development campaign in the area to reach more gas for its petrochemical plants in South Africa by April this year.

Those fields were the main contributors to the country’s 18 Bcf in production in 2006.

Exploration started in with the discovery of Pande field in 1961. But that early exploration during the 1960s found only gas, some asphalt shows and dead oil. In the 1960s no one wanted natural gas in a country with no infrastructure to use it.

Then the country went through a civil war that halted most exploration activity.

Companies as large as Exxon and BP looked over the country’s prospects, but even the Pande field wasn’t developed until 2004 when Sasol proposed a pipeline to South Africa to use the produced gas.

Markets also are developing. Plans for construction of a 100,000 b/d refinery in Beira at a cost of $1.3 billion were approved by the government. Potential investors in the project include Mozambique and the state oil companies of Iran and Malaysia. Most of the exports from the refinery will go to energy-poor Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.