Mozambique

CIA Factbook
Political rights and civil liberties (Freedom House)
Portuguese-English online dictionary
Travel and accomodation

Source: CIA Factbook

Maps and images

• Mozambique 250k topographical maps
  
• Mozambique Google Satellite Maps
• Mozambique Cities,Towns, Airports, Maps, Images
• Mozambique Image-1
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• Mozambique Minerals

Aluminium

• E C Meikles (Pty) Ltd of Zimbabwe mines bauxite at Monte Snuta at an estimated rate of 12 000 t per year.

Coal

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Copper

• Baobab Resources plc is exploring the area around the Mundonguara copper-gold mine (closed since 1989), with an existing high grade inferred resource of 226,000t @ 3.9% Cu, 0.7 g/t Au and 27 g/t Ag (Non-JORC).
  
  

Diamond

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Gold in Mozambique

Gold Home

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Geology

The regional trend of the Manica greenstone belt, on the Zimbabwean border, which hosts the known gold mineralization and only operating mine in the past, is east west. It consists of intensely metamorphosed and strongly foliated volcanic rocks, with subordinate banded ironstone, tuff and greywacke. The surrounding rocks are granite or gneiss from the Archaean basement. Structurally, the greenstone belt is complex with at least four major deformation phases identified.There are three east-west striking major shear zones which control the gold mineralization.

• Alluvial deposits within the Revue, Inhamurra, Muza and Chimezi rivers. An estimated resource potential of these alluvial deposits amounts to 112 million m³ at an average grade of 0.25g/m³, yielding approximately 25 t of gold.

• The Niassa province in the northwest of Mozambique has seen an increase in gold exploration and mining, in particular by artisanal workers. Gold is located within structurally controlled quartz veins located within Proterozoic greenstone belts located close to the shores of Lake Nyasa. Currently all gold production in this region comes from artisanal alluvial workings that grade at between 0.5 – 3 g/m³. It is estimated that about 12 t of gold has been produced from this region since 1990.

Bandire artisanal miners
Source: Baobab Resources plc

• Pan African Resources plc (AIM:PAF) is developing the Manica project where an orebody with an estimated 12, 5 million t at a grade of 2,58 g/t Au or 1,038 million oz of gold, has been outlined. Pan African released a resource update in September, 2007, which increased the estimated resource at Manica 18% to 1.55 million oz from the previous 1.31 million oz. A bankable feasibility study should be completed on the Manica project by July 2008. The company has completed 17 462 m of drilling at the site and intends to drill another 15 600 m during 2008. In January, 2008, the Manica project had a gross in situ mineral resource of about 16,28-million tons at 2,96 g/t. In the meantime, the Fair Bride prospect resource at the Manica project, has increased by 20%, to 1 245-million ounces, while the Guy Fawkes prospect has emerged as a significant new potential exploration target.
  

• Baobab Resources plc is exploring gold occurrences in the Manica, Bandire / Sussendenga and Furnacungo/Angoni areas. The company's principal asset is the Mundonguara copper/gold mine which last produced in the 1980s, where drilling is planned to confirm an existing high grade target and to explore for down dip and along strike extensions, lower grade haloes and to quantify the tenor of the 30 metre thick oxide cap. Other prospects within the Company's twenty one Prospecting Licences host a
  variety of commodities including copper, gold, nickel, uranium, silver, lead, zinc, iron ore and fluorite.
  

Nickel

• Zambezi Nickel Ltd is exploring the Mavita Project comprising two prospecting licences, LPP 1045 and LPP 1046, located in the Manica province of central western Mozambique. The geological setting of the Mavita Project area places it within the eastward extension of the Archaean Zimbabwean Craton and includes several areas of significant aeromagnetic and stream sediment geochemical nickel anomalies, coincident with mapped ultramafic lithologies. None of these anomalies have been drill tested to date.
  

Oil and Natural Gas

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• Natural gas production: 80 million cu m (2004 est.)
• Natural gas proved reserves: 127.4 billion cu m (1 January 2005 est.)

Source: National Petroleum Institute

History of Petroleum Exploration in Mozambique

Exploration for hydrocarbons in Mozambique goes back to 1904 when the early explorers discovered thick sedimentary basins onshore Mozambique. Poor technology and lack of funds halted those early exploration attempts.
From 1948 onwards international oil companies moved into Mozambique and carried out extensive exploration, mainly onshore with limited activity offshore. As a result the Pande Gas Field was discovered in 1961 by Gulf Oil (now part of Chevron) followed by the gas discoveries of Búzi (1962) and Temane (1967).
Exploration activity declined in the early 1970’s due to political unrest.
New activity was established in the early 1980’s with the enactment of law 3/81 and creation of ENH. In the following years extensive work was carried out to map and appraise the Pande Field.
A breakthrough was made in 1993 when it became clear that the Pande Field could be mapped using direct hydrocarbon indicators (DHI) from seismic data and it turned out that there was a giant bright spot at the top of the reservoir. The method was later also used to map the Temane field with good result.
From 1970 to 1980 there have only been drilled 6 wildcat wells in Mozambique – 3 of them offshore.
An extensive drilling campaign conducted by Sasol in 2003 which included exploration and production wells in the Pande/Temane Block allowed the expansion of gas reserves and the discovery of Inhassoro Gas Field, making total of 5,504 trillion cubic feet (TCF). (Source: National Petroleum Institute)

Hydrocarbon Potential & Occurrences

There are four proven gas fields in Mozambique: Pande,Temane, Buzi, Inhassoro. 22 other wells drilled to date showed gas, asphalt and traces of dead oil, and surface gas seepages occur at Inhaminga, Cundue Creek, Ponta Uifundo, with oil seepages at Lake Nhangela, Angoche, Pemba, Ponta Uifundo.
The Rovuma Basin is about 400 km long by 160 km (250 by 100 miles) and is centred on the Rovuma Delta near the border between Mozambique and Tanzania. The basin occurs both onshore and offshore. Nearly 73 000 sq. km (29 200 sq. miles) of the Rovuma Basin lies within Mozambique.
A number of oil and gas seepages have been identified in both the Mozambican and Tanzanian part of the basin, proving active petroleum systems.
It has been suggested that the Rovuma Delta Basin is geologically analogous to some of the great delta systems being developed today, such as the Niger Delta, Mahakam Delta and the Gulf of Mexico.

Rovuma Basin Concessions

Source: Artumas Group Inc

• Sasol Petroleum International is exploiting the Temane Gas Field and the first gas was put into the gas transmission pipeline at the central processing facility on the Feb 18, 2004 and delivered to Sasol's Secunda plant in South Africa on the February 21, 2004. A total of 2,618,894,658 Nm3 of gas and 619,440 bbls of condensate were produced up to August 2005.

• Artumas Group Inc is exploring the Rovuma on-shore block concession.

Principal Area of Operation

Source: Artumas Group Inc

• Anadarko Petroleum Corporation has been awarded offshore Area 1.

• In February 2005, Mozambique launched its second offshore licensing round for blocks in the northern Rovuma basin.
  

• Norsk Hydro has been awarded offshore Areas 2 and 5 in May, 2006.
  

• In June 2005, the Mozambican Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH) and the South African petrochemical company Sasol signed an agreement with the Mozambican government for Blocks 16 and 19 off the southern coast of Mozambique. Seismic studies and exploratory drilling on the blocks are expected to cost $7 million.
  

• PETRONAS has been awarded offshore Areas 3 and 6.

• Eni SpA has been awarded Area 4, located in the deep waters of the Rovuma Basin, covering an area of 17,646 square km and at a water depth of 2,600 metres.

Tantalum

Mozambique’s total tantalite production was 281,212 kg or 619,000 lb in 2005 compared with 712,095 kg (1,57 million lb) in 2004, according to the US Geological Survey.

• Noventa is operating the Marropino opencast tantalum mine expected to reach its capacity of 300,000 lb/year in the second quarter of 2007. Noventa currently has ore reserves of 11,4 million tonnes. The company has 12 licences in Mozambique and is exploring deposits at Morrua and Mutala; the latter having been mined on a small scale for 30 years. Reserves and resources of tantalite amount to 19 million pounds.

Uranium

• OmegaCorp Ltd is exploring the Mavuzi Project, located roughly 40 km northwest of the provincial centre of Tete in northwestern Mozambique and comprising four granted licences covering approximately 700 km². The central licence covers the historical Mavuzi Uranium Mine. It is also exploring the The Zambezi Valley Project, approximately 300 km due west of Tete in northwestern Mozambique. The single licence covers over 600 km² and lies on the border with Zimbabwe.