Eni can move to the next stage of its development of the Coral (SEN, 32/6) discovery in Area 4 offshore Mozambique after the plan of development was approved by the country’s government.

The approval relates Phase 1 of development of the 141 Bcm of gas from the 453-Bcm discovery, which is located in water more than 2,000 m deep and about 80 km offshore of the Palma Bay in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

The development plan, the first to be approved in the Rovuma Basin, foresees the drilling and completion of six subsea wells and the construction and installation of a floating LNG facility, the capacity of which will be about 3.4 million tonnes per annum.

The project was also the first in the Rovuma Basin to be granted an Environmental Licence in September 2015, at the end of a thorough process involving local communities and national authorities.

Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said, “Approval of the Coral Plan of Development is a historical milestone for the development of our discovery of 2.4 Tcm of gas in the Rovuma Basin. It is a fundamental step to progress towards the final investment decision of our project, which envisages the installation of the first newly built floating LNG facility in Africa and one of the first in the world.”

Eni and its partners also are pursuing development of the Mamba (32/18) discovery, which allowed the achievement of a unitization agreement with Area 1 in December 2015.

Eni is the operator of Area 4 with a 50% indirect interest, owned through Eni East Africa, which holds a 70% stake of Area 4. The other Concessionaires are Galp Energia, KOGAS and Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos with a 10% stake each. CNPC owns a 20% indirect interest in Area 4 through Eni East Africa.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources has approved Eni for the fast-track development of the offshore Zohr discovery.

The development plan envisages the start of production by year-end 2017, just two years after the discovery, with a progressive ramp-up until reaching a volume of about 75 MMcm/d of gas by 2019.

Zohr could hold a potential of 849 Bcm of lean gas in place (5.5 Bboe in place) covering an area of about 100 sq km. It’s the largest gas discovery ever made in Egypt and in the Mediterranean Sea and could become one of the world’s largest natural gas finds.