Maputo, Mozambique, 22 Sept – Around 85,000 inhabitants of Maputo province in southern Mozambique will have access to Mozambican natural gas starting on 22 June, 2012, a director of oil and gas company Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH) said Tuesday in Maputo.

In Mozambique the biggest reserves of natural gas so far discovered are located in Temane and Pande, in the southern province of Inhambane and have been explored since 2004 by South Africa’s Sasol.

Just as the districts of Vilanculos, Inhassoro and Govuro, in that province, already benefit from electricity generated from Mozambican natural gas, some companies operating in the industrial city of Matola, on the outskirts of Maputo, also use it for their production activities.

In the next two years the inhabitants of the capital and other potential customers in Matola and the districts of Marracuene will also be able to access up to 45 million gigajoules of natural gas produced in Temane.

According to the director of Engineering, Projects and Development of ENH, Paulino Gregório, work on building the gas transmission and distribution network will begin in March 2011, and is expected to cost US$95.5 million.

Natural gas was first found in Mozambique in 1962 when Gulf Oil was prospecting in the Pande field and, after independence, the Mozambican government, ENH and South Africa’s Sasol reached a number of historic deals that led to that natural resource being used. (macauhub)