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Mozambique: Mobilizing Extractive Resources for Development May 2013
monitoring of offshore oil and gas operations. Moreover, the government should also pay attention to
the potential environment disasters, which can trigger civil strife.
Investment Regulation
Furthermore there needs to be detailed environmental regulations on investment in hydrocarbons. This
is an essential point for Mozambique’s future sustainable development. The Government of
Mozambique could establish a national inter-ministerial extractive industry committee and appoint a
chairperson. It should deal with planning, contacting, SEAs, transparency and enforcement of laws.
Moreover, the committee should insist that companies repair all possible damages after any accident.
The lawmakers should also ensure that a certain percentage of natural gas revenue goes into renewable
energy investment.
PSSA Protection
The sixth concern is how to deal the particularly sensitive sea areas (“PSSAs”). PSSAs could help reserve
fishery resources by providing extra protection to wetlands, estuaries, mangrove forests and other
habitats. The Government could apply for PSSAs at the International Maritime Organization. A gas
project’s SEA process should also cover the identification of potential PSSAs. If there is a sensitive and
vulnerable site that is shared by two or more countries, all stakeholders should work together to
develop a joint protective measures.
The preceding six factors provide guidance on the most common environmental issues in offshore oil
and gas development.
4.4 Recommendations for the Regulations on Offshore Natural
Gas Exploration
It is not unusual for a country such as Mozambique to face capacity constraints when encountering a
boom in natural resource discoveries and the corresponding dramatic growth in foreign direct
investment. The same issue applies to the well-developed economy too. For the U.S., the 2010’s BP
deep water horizon oil spill is an example that, even for country with one of the most sound legal
systems in the world, it still faces the challenges of properly regulating and monitoring on its own
extractive industry. Since recent offshore oil and gas production is based on technology that has not
been mastered by many companies, the risk of accident is actually much higher than the onshore
production.
Based on our interviews and legal research, the Mozambique government has no administrative
legislation on international oil company (IOCs) offshore drilling activities. Thus the government actually
has no risk control to these offshore drilling activities. Lawmakers might not have difficulty to introduce
a complete regulation on the offshore natural gas drilling in time for investments and exploration from
foreign companies. However, it is necessary and possible for the Mozambique government to make the
reference to the laws of other countries. By requiring the IOCs to use the international drilling standard,
Mozambique could greatly reduce the risk of offshore drilling accident.
Below are examples of three countries for Mozambique legislative and administrative bodies’ reference.
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