Driving Mozambique’s development

[SBGroup]

Paul Eardley-Taylor, Standard Bank’ Head: Oil and Gas for Southern Africa

Financial Times Summit highlighting energy export potential is taking place today, 2 November 2016 in Maputo, Mozambique. We’re partnering with the Financial Times to bring together key influencers of growth and investment in Mozambique’s energy sector as the country enters a pivotal era of opportunity and fresh challenge.

Ahead of his panel discussion this morning, Paul Eardley-Taylor, Standard Bank Head of Oil and Gas for Southern Africa, shares his thoughts on Mozambique’s potential as an investment destination.

“With Mozambique ranking amongst the world’s top 10 gas resources, the importance of developing Mozambique as a global and regional energy supplier is critical to the development of the entire region especially since domestic gas will in time represent a significant component of Mozambique’s LNG opportunity, amid a global trend towards cleaner energy.

Rapid urbanisation in Southern and East Africa - which includes some of the continent’s largest and fastest growing economies – has presented Mozambique with huge opportunity as a regional energy supplier.

More broadly, Mozambique’s potential to export LNG globally is equally considerable, with a large window of opportunity expected in global demand from 2023 onwards.

Leveraging this opportunity, however, requires that Mozambique reach financial close existing LNG opportunities in order to lock in long term LNG sales contracts, a balancing act in the context of significant global LNG supply.

Mozambique’s current debt repayment challenges needed to be understood within the context of the country’s future potential LNG export earnings, noting other LNG exporting country precedent.

For Standard Bank, the Financial Times Summit presents an opportunity, to explore ways for Mozambique to partner with specialists in the private sector to develop a sound framework to stabilise the broader economy, re-gain global investor confidence and unlock the country’s energy potential.”