Mozambique has become a new LNG exporter, the first tanker is already on its way to Europe

Mozambique, a country located in Southeast Africa, has become the world's new LNG exporter, sending the first tanker to Europe to ease Europe's dependence on Russian gas. Europe is trying to replace Russian gas supplies after the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February.

The country's president, Filipe Nyusi, announced the start of LNG exports. Italian Eni produces natural gas in the offshore field of Mozambique, which is one of the largest in Africa. The company operates a floating LNG plant - Coral-Sul Floating LNG, from which the first delivery was made.

British BP, which has booked all Coral-Sul capacities, has purchased the first LNG supply, which will be delivered on the British Sponsor tanker to Europe, but it is not yet known to which country. The capacity of the British Sponsor is more than 100 mcm of natural gas.

The Coral-Sul Floating LNG production platform has a capacity of 3.4 million tonnes of LNG per year (almost 4.7 bcm), which is about a third of the UK's imports last year.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned in a report that European LNG markets are bracing for "a winter of unprecedented supply volatility" due to sanctions in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. A complete cessation of pipeline flows to the European Union is also not excluded, the report says.

According to Bloomberg, this has drawn attention to Mozambique's resources, even as its biggest projects have faced years of delays.

It was previously expected that natural gas fields on the northern coast of Mozambique could attract up to $120 billion in investment. TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil each planned more than $20 billion worth of onshore production projects worth more than Mozambique's GDP, but both have been stalled by an insurgency linked to the Islamic State.