China National Petroleum Corp announced on Monday the export of the first cargo of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Mozambique, which marks the beginning of Mozambique's emergence as a producer and exporter of LNG at the global market.

The oil tanker British Sponsor left Mozambican territorial waters on Sunday, carrying the first cargo of LNG produced by the Coral South Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) project in the north of the country, it said.

Being Africa's largest and the second largest FLNG project in the world, Coral South FLNG is the pioneering part of Mozambique's Area 4 mega gas project, which was a joint venture bringing together the Italian ENI, ExxonMobil of the US, China's CNPC, Mozambican ENH, the Galp from Portugal and the Korean KOGAS.

Integrating the world's most cutting-edge deep-sea LNG technology, Coral South FLNG contains a floating production platform installed 80 kilometers offshore of Mozambique in the southern part of Area 4 of the Rovuma Basin.

It has a production capacity of 3.4 million tons of LNG per year from wells located in 2,000-meter water depth with a design life of 25 years, said CNPC.

zhengxin@chinadaily.com.cn