- To assist overseas energy development of KOGAS while helping Korean ship builders suffering from weak market demand
- Aims to both support the bid winning and project operation of Korean companies amid project market’s evolution into a project investment and development combined type


■ Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-sure, www.ksure.or.kr, Moon Jae-do, president) announced on June 1, Thursday, that it would provide U$800 million of trade insurance support to a floating LNG(FLNG) facility construction project for drilling and production of natural gas at the Coral Natural Gas Field which lies offshore Northern Mozambique (Area 4).


○ The Coral Gas Field lying in Rovuma basin offshore Northern Mozambique, Africa, has been in the industry lime light after more than 85TCF of gas reserves was confirmed.

* 85TFC (Trillion Cubic Feet) : Equivalent to 1.8 billion ton of LNG, enough to cover 7 years of world LNG consumption (based on the amount consumed in 2016: 260million ton)


■ This project is to ‘develop overseas energy resources through project investment and development’ to which KOGAS makes equity investment (10%) while taking charge of gas field operation. For the project, K-sure provides project financing to support Korean companies pursuing overseas energy resource development projects.

○ Besides K-sure and KOGAS, other major global companies - ENI (50%), an Italian energy company, and CNPC (20%) of China - also participate in the project of installing a liquefaction floater for finding, drilling and transporting of natural gas for production and trade of LNG which is slated to be 3.37million ton per year.


■ K-sure’s joining to the project is expected to bring much-needed support to the Korean ship builders as they have been under a severe market condition caused by weak market demand.

○ Already in September 2014, K-sure issued a letter of intent on the project and has provided indirect support to Korean project bidders ever since. The total contract amount won by the bid winning consortium led by Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) (joined by Technip of France and JGC of Japan) is expected to reach U$5billion.


○ The project will provide export opportunities to Korean SMEs as SHI plans to procure 60% of its total parts and equipments needs from Korean small and medium part manufacturers.


■ Mr. Moon Jae-do, president of K-sure, stated that “Now Korean companies’ frame of overseas project business goes far beyond the previous approach focusing mainly on contract winning. It has evolved into combining project investment and development, providing active equity investment and project operation at the same time.


Facing such a trend, K-sure will not spare its support to Korean companies to assist them to win successful outcomes from both project bidding and operation. “


【 Offshore Mozambique Natural Gas Field Blocks 】

* The development right of the offshore Coral Gas Field, divided into 6 blocks by the government of Mozambique is granted to countries described below by each area;
Area 1: By Japan and the U.S. / Area 4: By Korea, Italy, China, and Portugal