Mozambique plans to sign an agreement with Russian group Rosneft and US group ExxonMobil on the exploration of natural gas fields in the north of the country by the end of the year, the Mozambican foreign minister said on Monday in Moscow.

José Pacheco said at the end of a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov that the idea is to sign the agreement later this year to start the development of natural gas fields with the participation of the two groups.

In 2015, the National Oil Institute granted three blocks to the ExxonMobil (60%) and Rosneft (20%) consortium, one in the Angoche basin and the other two in the Zambezi basin in central Mozambique, a fourth block was granted to the consortium made up of Italian group ENI (34%), Sasol Petroleum (25.5%) of South Africa and Statoil (25.5%) from Norway.

The Russian group announced in May 2017 that it intended to start prospecting in Mozambique in the second half of the year, according to its 2016 annual report and accounts. (macauhub)