Mozambique is set to send its first cargo of liquefied natural gas abroad, joining the ranks of world exporters as a global energy crisis pushes fuel prices to record levels.

The BP-operated British Mentor LNG tanker is expected to arrive on August 24 at a new floating terminal that Eni is completing off Mozambique's northern coast, according to ship tracking data compiled by the program Bloomberg and quoted by several news portals.

Without giving too many details, Eni, according to the news agency's website, made it known that it is already planning a second floating export platform on Mozambican territory, which could become operational in less than four years.

So Mozambique will start exporting natural gas at the best time: the prices of this hydrocarbon are at historic highs (and should continue to rise) with the huge demand from European and Asian countries, deprived of abundant Russian gas after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Seeking to end their dependence on Russian gas, European buyers are paying a heavy premium as they compete with Asia to secure LNG cargoes before winter.

After nearly a month at sea, the LNG tanker British Mentor has departed for the FLNG (floating liquefied natural gas, a floating liquefied natural gas facility) of Cabo-Sul in Mozambique, where it is expected to load the first export cargo from the offshore production platform.

Eni's $7 billion Coral-South project was targeting first exports by October. Despite the pandemic and Islamic State-linked insurgency in Mozambique, which derailed a $20 billion TotalEnergies export facility, BP signed a deal in 2016 to buy all production for 20 years from Coral-Sul, which is designed to produce 3.4 million metric tons of LNG.