Eni's Chief Executive Officer, Claudio Descalzi (photo), has on Friday revealed that the dismissal of Mozambique's energy minister will not affect the Coral offshore gas development’s final investment decision (FID).

This follows Thursday’s report that the President of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi has dismissed Mineral Resources and Energy Minister, Pedro Couto, a month before Eni is due to finalize its decision on the gas project worth tens of billions of dollars.

“The government's decision will have no impact,” Descalzi said.

The President did not give the reason behind the dismissal of the Minister, who had held the position since January 2015, Reuters reports.

Six years ago, the country came across offshore gas reserves of about 85 trillion cubic feet, one of the largest find sufficient to supply Germany, Britain, France and Italy for about two decades.

The gas provides Mozambique with an opportunity to become a middle-income state and also a major global liquefied natural gas exporter.

Eni has entered into a deal worth around $5.4 billion with Samsung Heavy Industries in July to provide a floating LNG platform to process gas from the field, which is to be sold to BP.

The Italian company has also finalized negotiations to farm-out a multi-billion dollar interest in other fields in Area 4 to ExxonMobil.

Anita Fatunji