The Vice-Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, António Saide, urged the entrepreneurs of Cabo Delgado province to improve their productive capacities, through internal or international partnerships, in order to meet the required standards in the local content of oil and gas projects.

Saide, who was speaking, recently, in the city of Pemba, at the seminar on local opportunities of the Coral Sul FNLG project, developed by the Italian Eni Rovuma Basin, underlined that the Government reiterates the need for synergies because they maximize the transfer and adoption of knowledge and guarantee a greater use of opportunities by the national business fabric.

According to Saide, the seminar held in Pemba and attended by representatives of several Cabo Delgado-based companies is part of the Government's program and aims to publicize the business and employment opportunities within the oil and gas projects.

This is a periodic platform that promotes interaction with all concessionaires in the mineral resources sector and emphasizes that it is through frank and open dialogue that one can dissipate penumbras, catapult and maximize the participation of Mozambicans in the supply chain of goods and services to oil and gas projects, thus establishing an ever greater balance between local and global supply.

"The South Coral FLNG is a project whose main activities take place offshore, yet there are opportunities that can ensure value addition in the supply and service delivery chains under local content," he said.

The business diagnosis carried out by the National Petroleum Institute (INP), to assess the level of preparation of national companies, to provide services and supply goods to the oil and gas mega-projects, concluded that there are few companies that meet the qualifications to offer services, hence the Government has been mobilizing resources for the certification of some.

Milissão Milissão, from INP, announced that 50 companies will benefit from this certification package, 25 of which are from Cabo Delgado province, hence he asked the provincial business council to work on identifying the candidates.

Mamudo Irage, from the Confederation of Mozambican Economic Associations (CTA), guaranteed that everything will be done so that their associates can benefit from the oil and gas projects, among others, in the Rovuma basin, despite the difficult situation in which most of them find themselves, because of the terrorist attacks.

According to Eni Rovuma Basin representative Ivan Codognotto, the Coral Sul FLNG project is a gas development located in Area 4 of the Rovuma Basin, whose main objective is to exploit the coral reservoir, through a floating production and liquefaction infrastructure, anchored more than 50 kilometers from the mainland of Cabo Delgado.