Manica Freight Services (Mozambique) is on track to open a fully operational office in Afungi in Mozambique before the end of the year.This is part of an ongoing strategy to upscale its footprint in the country after being awarded several contracts directly related to the LNG projects in Cabo Delgado.According to Andreas Kusza, MFS senior management adviser, the offices are in conjunction with Manica Te r m i n a l s (MMT) and are a sign of the company ’s commitment to investing in infrastructure in the region.“Together with our strategic partners we have grown our oil and gas as well as project focus significantly over the past couple of years. More recently, we have been TR ACE certified (the world's leading anti-bribery standard-setting organisation) and are fully compliant and ready to grow our footprint.”He said due to rapidly increasing activities in the Pemba region the company was set to put further infrastructure in place over the course of the next few years.“Our ships’ agency division is handling the recently launched cabotage service, connecting all the Mozambican main ports by sea. Regular barge services have been successfully implemented between Pemba and Afungi, with additional capacities in the pipeline,” he told Freight News.Commenting on the current security situation in Cabo Delgado, Kusza said there were concerns for the existing infrastructure in and around Pemba while the berthing situation at EBL Afungi was problematic.“Currently all road traffic from and to Afungi has been interrupted – and with increasing volumes going to the site, bottlenecks are unavoidable. We cooperate very closely with local customs’ authorities in order to provide information about oil- and gas-related cargo in order to familiarise them with all relevant details about ‘new and unknown’ types of cargo, in order to create awareness and to avoid possible delays in processing entries.”He said MFS also undertook regular risk assessments. “Not only from the aforementioned security and infrastructural aspects, but natural risk of severe weather patterns also needs to be considered. The rainy season in northern Mozambique can be quite challenging and bring major delays or disruptions to the supply chain.”He said despite the volatility of the oil and gas market prices, oil and gas projects in Mozambique were set to continue and would be completed. “Final investment decisions, however, seem to have been put on hold.”Kusza said while Covid-19 had impacted on operations in Mozambique, the oil and gas sector had adapted swiftly to the new operating environment, re-engineering supply chains completely.“The ongoing developments in Mozambique seem to have inspired exploration and production in several other African countries, which is very good news.”Kusza said while there were a lot of mixed messages about the outlook for the oil and gas industry, there was still a lot to be excited about. The move towards gas – seen as a cleaner resource by countries walking away from coal and nuclear – was good news for Mozambique with its massive gas resources.“Several oil majors have already started to diversify and position themselves for another energy revolution. It will be difficult to predict where it will leave the African initiatives as yet,” he said.
