Mozambique Government Turns to Natural Gas After End of Coal Boom

Mining Weekly reported that Mozambique’s coal boom is officially over and now the government is looking at offshore gas, analysts said at a coal conference in Maputo.
As quoted in the market news:

Just a few years ago, billions of dollars poured into Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest nations, in a twin scramble for inland coal and offshore gas. The gas rush is intact, but the coal boom has come apart at the seams, hobbled by low prices, overblown expectations, and a rail and port network that remains woefully inadequate.
“At this stage Mozambique is not a coal story any more. It’s very expensive, very uncompetitive and they need a lot of added capacity,” said Thea Fourie, Africa economist at His, a financial and risk consultancy. “It’s really a liquefied natural gas (LNG) story now and I think the government is shifting its focus from coal to LNG,” she told Reuters on the sidelines of a Mozambique coal conference organised by Informa.
In the coal region of northern Tete province, there has been a flurry of exploration permits issued and regular flights now connect this rural backwater to Johannesburg. But real action is limited.