6. Why is all the natural gas exported to South Africa and Mozambique has to import gas for its own use?
There are two complementary answers to this question:
The first is that, in order for the NGP of Pande and Temane to be viable, it was necessary, at the outset, to find an interested party with the capacity to buy the totality of the gas produced.
There were then no projects in Mozambique that guaranteed that level of consumption, neither did the market indicate an alternative utilization of the gas produced. Taking this into account, the partners in the venture agreed to sell the gas to the petrochemical company Sasol, at Secunda in South Africa, and to that end included the construction of the gas pipeline in the project. In the context of the Project Expansion Program 27 million Gigajoules p.a. have been allocated to the Mozambican market.
The second answer reinforces the first and justifies the need for the importation of gas: Mozambique imports propane gas, commonly known as LPG (liquefied gas) or simply as domestic gas. The gas produced at Pande and Temane is industrial gas which needs to be refined in order to be used domestically. At this moment there exists no infrastructure in Mozambique capable of carrying out that refining process. However, within the scope of the NGP Expansion Program, the Processing Plant at Temane will be re-capacitated in order to produce LPG. Viability studies are being carried out at this moment to determine the feasibility of the project, which should be implemented in 2012, to produce the gas which is now being imported.