The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the consortiums led by France's TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil will start producing gas in Mozambique in 2027 and 2029 respectively.

The economist from the IMF's African department said that the start-up will have a positive impact on growth through production, tax revenues and the current account.

Thibault Lemaire assures that the French oil company Total will return to Cabo Delgado after suspending work due to the violence in the north of the country. He also said that the US company ExxonMobil will soon move forward with a positive Final Investment Decision for Mozambique.

The country "continues to face significant development challenges, in particular due to the increased frequency and severity of natural disasters related to climate change," said Thibault Lemaire, speaking to Lusa following the release of the report on forecasts for sub-Saharan Africa, presented as part of the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings.

After the 4.1% recorded in 2022, an acceleration from the 2.3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in 2021, already in the wake of the worst phase of the pandemic, and with recoveries in the hospitality, transport and communications sectors, the IMF expects economic expansion to accelerate.

"For 2023, and in the medium term, we expect a new recovery, the growth of 5% in 2023 will be driven by the extractive industries, including Coral South, the first liquefied natural gas project," whose first export was already made at the end of last year, he pointed out.

Mozambique has three development projects approved to exploit the natural gas reserves in the Rovuma basin, classified among the largest in the world, off the coast of Cabo Delgado.

Two of these projects are larger and involve channeling the gas from the seabed to land, cooling it in a factory and exporting it by sea in a liquid state.

One is led by TotalEnergies (the Area 1 consortium) and work progressed until it was suspended indefinitely following an armed attack on Palma in March 2021, when the French energy company declared that it would only resume work when the area was safe.

The other is the still unannounced investment led by ExxonMobil and Eni (Area 4 consortium).

A third completed and smaller project also belongs to the Area 4 consortium and consists of a floating platform for capturing and processing gas for export, directly at sea, which started up in November 2022.

The floating platform is expected to produce 3.4 mtpa (million tons per year) of liquefied natural gas, Area 1 points to 13.12 mtpa and the onshore plan for Area 4 foresees 15 mtpa.