Maputo iron and steel project agreement signed

Mozambique and the US oil and gas company Enron corporation have signed a US $1.5 billion agreement for the Maputo Iron and Steel Project (MISP), news reports said on Tuesday. According to reports, the deal involved the construction of a process plant in Maputo and support infrastructure to produce steel slabs from iron ore, and the construction of a 610 km pipeline from the Pande gas fields in Inhambane province, in southern Mozambique, to feed the plant with natural gas. The pipeline would cost an estimated US $400 million. Enron anticipated producing initially about 2 million mt of steel slabs a year, eventually rising to 4 million mt. The project has been on Mozambique’s development agenda for a number of years and has evoked concern from environmentalists at various stages of its planning, particularly when the option to move iron ore from Phalaborwa by slurry pipeline through the Kruger National Park was under consideration. It was now understood the project developers would source iron ore elsewhere.