Rosneft, Exxon Jointly Bid for Mozambique Licence Round

RN-Exploration, a 100 percent of Rosneft, and ExxonMobil filed joint bids to participate in the Mozambique’s fifth license round.

The round is organized by the Mozambique Institute of National Petroleum (Instituto Nacional de Petróleo).

The global partnership of the companies is of a strategic nature, Rosneft said in a statement published Thursday.

“Rosneft and ExxonMobil have a proven track record of highly successful cooperation at the Sakhalin-1 project, and are each committed to continuing to operate in an environmentally responsible manner in Mozambique if selected,” Rosneft said.

The two companies decided to file joint bids for the participation in the license round for contract areas in the Angoche Basin (A5-A and A5-B) and Zambezi Delta (Z5-C and Z5-D).

If successful ExxonMobil will become the operator, Rosneft said. The prospectivity assessment for the exploration on these contract areas was confirmed within the cooperation of both companies’ geological analysis. 

The participation in exploration and development projects in Mozambique is a new focus area of Rosneft’s international strategy.

Mozambique has seen a number of breakthrough offshore gas discoveries in recent years. The key gas potential of the country is concentrated in the Rovuma basin and in the Mozambique river basin (3 onshore gas fields with proven reserves of up to 95 BCM and 1 offshore gas field with resources of up to 56 BCM).