On Monday, Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC) announced it made a huge natural gas find off the coast of the African nation Mozambique.
Anadarko has 36.5% interest in the area, alongside Mitsui E&P Mozambique Area 1, which owns 20%, BPRL Ventures Mozambique, which controls 10%, Videocon Mozambique Rovuma 1 Limited also with 10%, and Cove Energy Mozambique Rovuma Offshore, owning 8.5%.
And all of these companies are set to benefit from the find. As Anadarko CEO Jim Hackett told Bloomberg:
“This could be one of the most important natural gas fields discovered in the last 10 years.”
The company estimates, based on their Barquentine-3 well, that the field holds between 15 trillion and 30 trillion cubic feet of the resource.
Initially, says Chron.com, the company thought the deposit was much smaller. This new estimate is cause for celebration for all involved.
The article reports that the U.S. takes in about 23 trillion cubic feet a year. The deposit has at least enough to sustain a year of the United States’ needs.
And according to Bloomberg, Anadarko has decided to start building in the area to bring natural gas back to the coast and prepare it for international shipping.
South Africa, a neighbor to Mozambique, is hoping to benefit from the resource as well.
As Business Report says, South Africa is looking into restructuring its energy system in order to take advantage of this resource.
Eni (BIT: ENI), an Italian company, also found around 22.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas off the same coast just a month ago.
These two big announcements could spur greater development of this region as companies are curious to see how much more natural gas they could draw from the coast.
Anadarko was up 5.56% on Wednesday to $81.03.
That’s all for now,
Brianna
