Organizations from Nampula accuse the Government of locking itself up about the oil prospecting in Angoche. They say that for six years they had no access to the progress of the process..

In Mozambique, the government assures that the first oil and gas drillings in the Angoche basin, in Nampula province, will be carried out in 2022. However, NGOs in the province allege that there is little transparency in the performance of the extraction companies.

In October 2014, the Mozambican government launched the 5th hydrocarbon exploration tender, with a view to carrying out exploration work in fields located in the offshore areas of the Rovuma Basin, the Zambezi River Delta and the Angoche Basin, as well as in the onshore part of the Palmeiras and around Pande-Temane areas.

According to DW, the contracts were initialed in 2018, but the Covid-19 pandemic delayed the process. Max Tonela, Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, says this has slowed down the prospecting and exploration periods for the contracts. However, Tonela says he expects "activities for the completion of the first drill hole to take place in 2022."

Non-participation of NGOs

However, the non-governmental organizations in the area of natural resources in Nampula are looking at the deal with suspicion. According to them, the government of Filipe Nyusi is doing everything in silence and there is little participation of NGOs in the process.

Jordão Matimula, director of the National Association for Rural Extension (AENA), says that they only learned "about the potential for oil in the Angoche basin from the fifth round that took place at government level four years ago. For this reason, they understood that ENI [Italian oil company] and Exxon Mobil [US oil company] had received the concessions for blocks A and B.

But since then, they have had no further information about the process. In 2020, a public consultation process was initiated by a company contacted by ENI to sound out civil society. Matimula says that the NGOs understood that "at the same time [they were] being consulted, oil prospecting was going on," which was seen as a bad thing.

For the executive director of AENA, there is too much haste on the side of the government and the concessionaires. He suggests that even if the prospecting and research process lasts 5 to 10 years, "one must wait.

And the example of Inhambane, which began in 2004 with the exploration of gas from Pande-Temane. In addition to the exploration having started early, the benefit for the population was little. "One realizes that the owners of the gas will gain much more than the population," he says.

Extraction may attract interest from extremist groups

Matimula fears that the terrorism that affects the province of Cabo Delgado, will reach Angoche, because of its resources associated with poverty and unemployment that embrace the population, especially the youth.

And the director of AENA recalls that the coastal regions of Mozambique, such as Memba, Ilha de Moçambique, Nacala and Nacala-a-velha, have been targets of recruitment for extremist groups. "We do not want Angoche to be a new stage for insurgents in Mozambique," he points out.