Brusco provided an update on the project during Eni’s second-quarter earnings call on Friday.
He was asked what prevents the company from taking FID after awarding partial awards to contractors.
“We have, as you may have noticed, we’ve got the government’s full approval, and we are now in the process to progress and finalize the JV FID,” he said.
“However, we have already secured the long-lead items. We have already secured the yards and all the critical elements to secure the schedule of the project,” Brusco said.
South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy recently announced that it had signed a contract for preliminary work prior to the main contract for offshore production facilities with an owner in Africa.
The contract is worth 869.4 billion won or about $640 million.
Shipbuilding sources told LNG Prime that this contract is for Eni’s Coral Norte FLNG.
France-based LNG engineering giant Technip Energies and Japan’s JGC also won contracts for preliminary work on Eni’s second FLNG project in Mozambique, Coral Norte (Coral North).
50 percent stake
During the call, Brusco also answered a question about the stake size in Coral Norte FLNG, as Eni has a 25 percent stake in Coral Sul FLNG.
“We have 50 percent because we have an agreement with one of the other partners to swap interest between the onshore and offshore projects. And so we have taken a higher stake in the offshore,” Brusco said.
Earlier this year, Eni received approval from the government of Mozambique for its second FLNG project in Mozambique, moving forward towards the exploitation of the natural gas resources of the Coral deposit, located in Area 4 offshore of the Rovuma Basin.
The project involves the production of 3.55 million metric tons of LNG per annum.
Coral North FLNG will be a replica of Coral South, which has proven to be effective for deepwater production and also has already exported more than 100 LNG shipments.
Eni discovered Coral back in May 2012, and it operates the Area 4 along its partners ExxonMobil, CNPC, Galp, Kogas, and ENH.
Argentina FLNG FID by Q1 2026
Brusco also discussed the third phase of YPF’s Argentina LNG export project during the call and taking FID on the project.
Last month, the two firms signed a participation deal that outlines the necessary steps to reach FID for the LNG project.
This phase includes the production, treatment, transportation, and liquefaction installations of gas through floating units, for a total capacity of 12 million tons of LNG per year.
Argentina LNG is a large-scale integrated, upstream and midstream gas development project designed to develop the resources of the onshore Vaca Muerta field and serve international markets.
It will export in a phased approach up to 30 million tons per year of LNG by 2030.
“Of course, quite a number of steps need to be made and fine-tuned with YPF, which includes the final project configuration and the final field development plans, commercial agreements, and then offtake agreements and the project financing,” Brusco said during the call.
“So this would require some time,” he said.
“The plan is to have an FID by the first quarter of 2026, while the agreement with YPF on how to progress the project will be reached before that, of course,” Brusco said.
