Petrochemicals group Sasol has found oil in wells off Mozambique and aims to bring the fossil fuel to production for the first time in the southern African nation, one of its joint chief executives said on Monday.
Oil production will raise the hydrocarbon profile of Mozambique, an impoverished nation in the throes of a financial and debt crisis which has vast untapped offshore gas reserves and inland coal deposits.
"This will be the first oil wells in Mozambique that go to full development. Probably in two, maximum three years," Stephen Cornell told Reuters in an interview after the company announced interim results.
The company earlier said four of 12 planned wells had been drilled and the results had been surprising.
"We have drilled four wells, two of them gas, two of them oil, all showing positive results. In one of the areas where we expected mostly gas we found gas and oil," Cornell said.
The company has issued a "notice of discovery" to the government.
Cornell told Reuters Sasol had discovered oil in Mozambique before but as "part of an appraisal of the field and that helped us know where to drill."
But he said Mozambique was still "primarily a gas play."
<<Print>>