The environmental consultancy firm, Consultec, assures that no fatal issues have been identified, namely unacceptable environmental and social risks that could jeopardize the viability of the hydrocarbon exploration project called Coral Norte, to be developed in the Rovuma basin.

This guarantee was made public by Emanuel Viçoso, project coordinator at Consultec, on Friday in Maputo, during the public consultation of the preliminary environmental impact study for the implementation of this project.

The Coral Norte project aims to set up the second floating platform for the exploration of liquefied natural gas in Area 4, led by the Italian oil company Eni.

According to Emanuel Viçoso, "the impacts found can be managed adequately and successfully through the application of appropriate mitigation measures, a task to be carried out in subsequent phases".

The new Floating Liquefied Natural Gas Platform (FLNG), called Coral Norte, will be developed in a hydrocarbon prospecting and production block located offshore in the Rovuma basin operated by Mozambique Rovuma Venture (MRV), more than 50 kilometers (km) from the coast of the Palma district, Cabo Delgado province, and is about 10 km north of the FLNG - Coral Sul.

The Coral Norte project, which will have a production capacity of 3.4 million tons per year, will extract natural gas from six underwater wells for a period of 25 years to produce Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) for export to Europe.