The award of an engineering, procurement and construction contract for two trains on Anadarko Petroleum’s Mozambique LNG project is a major step forward for the $25 billion scheme.

This contract award pre-figures an announcement of a final investment decision, due on 18 June.

Next up should be the award to a TechnipFMC-led group for the subsea hardware on the deep-water Golfinho-Atum field in Area 1.

A development drilling contract has also to be officially let.

While many words have been written and spoken about the lengthy time taken to bring Mozambique LNG to fruition, one industry executive said the Maputo-based government has done a decent job in the circumstances.

It is sometimes easy to forget that Anadarko’s play-opening gas discovery was drilled nine years ago in a frontier zone, off the neglected Cabo Delgado province, which has no oil and gas infrastructure and negligible conventional infrastructure.

Last month, Paul Eardley-Taylor, head of Standard Bank’s Southern Africa oil and gas business, said Mozambique’s government “has, on the whole, given companies what they need to invest and raise capital and changed its laws to promote a timeline.”

He said Maputo’s sovereign objectives have not been prioritised over “getting the job done,” with the advantage that these commitments have encouraged further explorers into the country.

Even so, Eardley-Taylor says the “need for speed” when sanctioning projects in Africa is paramount because they increasingly compete for capital against US shale.

Perhaps Uganda and Tanzania could learn from Mozambique’s playbook.

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'Need for speed' in Africa gas