Maputo — The Mozambican government on Tuesday approved its Natural Gas Master Plan, which aims at maximizing the benefits that the country can gain from this natural resource.
After the document had been approved at the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet), the Minister of Mineral Resources, Esperanca Bias, told reporters “this is a detailed road map for taking strategic, political and institutional decisions, on the basis of which investments in this area can be designed and implemented in this area in a coordinated manner”.
The plan, she explained, envisages the construction of a gas pipeline from Palma, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, where huge deposits of natural gas have been discovered offshore, to Maputo.
Such a pipeline would be over 2,000 kilometres long. At points along its route there would be branches of the pipeline to feed gas to various industrial projects.
“Through this master plan, the government intends to maximize benefits from the gas, not only through the revenue from sales, but also as a factor for the industrial development of Mozambique”, she said.
To build the pipeline, Bias added, studies are currently under way. Further studies are being made on the domestic and export markets for the gas.
The Council of Ministers also approved the terms and conditions for authorizing concession contracts for two hydro-electric undertakings in the Zambezi Valley.
One of the proposed new dams on the Zambezi is at Boroma, in Changara district, in Tete province, and will generate 215 megawatts. The second is further downstream at the Lupata Gorge, generally regarded as the boundary between the middle and the lower Zambezi, and could generate 600 megawatts.
