The National Petroleum Institute (INP) is committed to maximizing national labor in gas extraction projects and beyond in Mozambique. The initiative aims to strategically take advantage of nearly 14,000 possible jobs in the four major projects underway in the country.

The projects are Mozambique LNG, Rovuma LNG, Coral Sul FLNG, and Inhassoro-Temane. The Mozambique LNG project alone, which will exploit the gas at the Afunji logistics base in Cabo Delgado, is currently interrupted and has no date for resumption due to safety issues. It should create five thousand jobs for Mozambicans in the construction phase and 1,200 in the operational phase, with a plan to train 2,500 technicians.

In the case of the ongoing projects, namely South Coral FLNG and Inhassoro-Temane, they have jointly provided 3820 jobs in the construction phase alone, with some 486 fixed jobs expected in the production phase, including foreign labor that will be reduced in number later.

The information was made available over the weekend in Maputo by Natália Camba, director of Local Content at INP, on the sidelines of the education fair in the capital of the country.

"These projects also have a great capacity to create indirect jobs, with the foreign workforce decreasing over the course of the project and the Mozambican workforce tending to increase. Most of these jobs are expected to be provided by contractors and subcontractors. The most requested areas will be construction with a weight of 88 percent," said the source.

With the strategy to meet the demand for skilled labor for the extractive industry projects in the country, the INP intends to develop a cadre of qualified human resources to meet the demands of the market, as well as to combat the discrepancy between the investments made in the industry and its capacity to generate employment.

In the framework of Local Content, the INP's actions with the concessionaires foresees the capacity building, training, and certification of about 200 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in transversal areas and internationally required standards. "Regarding Local Content, the companies were obliged to present an integral development plan, which includes commitments mainly in the capacity building of companies and workforces," he added.

Another element advanced by the source is that a large part of the positions required for the projects need skills that require experience and familiarity with the sector, hence the need for the creation of training centers equipped to meet the industry's training needs.