The Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy said Thursday that South African multinational Sasol "is obliged" to create jobs and business opportunities for Mozambican companies in its natural gas projects in Mozambique.
"The government has approved the project development plan [for natural gas production to begin in 2024] and one of the components in which Sasol is obligated to comply is the development of local content," Max Tonela said.
Tonela was speaking to the media after visiting the sites where the South African petrochemical company is opening new boreholes and rehabilitating old ones for natural gas extraction in the Pande and Temane fields, in Inhambane province, southern Mozambique.
Under a new Production Sharing Agreement with Sasol, the Mozambican executive wants the company to hire more local labor and promote more opportunities for Mozambican companies.
"We agreed that over the next three years the level of participation of Mozambican companies in the opportunities created by Sasol should increase from 50% to 70%," he pointed out.
On the other hand, the company opened with the national bank a credit line in favor of companies that will provide goods and services to the new project of natural gas development in Inhambane province, according to the source.
The company, he continued, will also intensify the technical and professional training of the local labor force, aiming to allow the youth of Inhambane province to have access to employment.
Max Tonela said that the government and Sasol started on Thursday regular meetings to monitor the degree of compliance with the company's commitments under the so-called "local content", a concept that defines labor and business opportunities for Mozambicans.
The governor considered that a greater commitment by the extractive industry multinationals will be an important contribution to the mitigation of "tensions" between the companies and the communities living in the areas where the megaprojects are implemented.
"The populations demand a more direct and more visible contribution that the project must leave in the area of implantation," he pointed out.
In July of this year, a group of young people from the Inhassoro district, where Sasol operates, blocked the National Highway 1 (EN1) for a few hours in protest against the alleged exclusion of local communities.
Sasol's ventures in Mozambique will feed the largest thermal power plant to be built in the country with 450 megawatts, an electricity transmission line between Inhambane and Maputo of more than 560 kilometers and three substations costing more than 600 million dollars.
Max Tonela pointed out that the project will also understand the production of cooking gas by favoring new relationships between companies and value chains.
In the construction phase, Sasol's new venture will employ at peak 6,500 workers and in the operation stage 714 jobs.
Construction work on the new Sasol project in Inhambane will be finished in 2024, with natural gas production to start that year.
Sasol had operated gas reserves since 2004 in Temane and Pande with pipelines to South Africa and Maputo, also feeding the Mozambican power plant of Ressano Garcia, near the capital and on the border with South Africa.
JICA Trains Communities in Climate Change Resilient Construction Techniques
The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is training communities in the city of Beira, Sofala, on building climate change resilient houses.
The training, which will last three months, is part of the post-cyclone reconstruction process and is based on a construction technique using wood.
In the first phase, twenty carpenters participate in the training, who have the mission of making the replica in the communities.
The councilman for Urban Management and Equipment at the Beira City Council, Manuel Joaquim, stresses that cyclones Idai and Eloíse showed the need to invest in building resilient infrastructure.
Lusa Agency