A worker monitors a gas transmission labyrinth. Mozambique is currently targeting such Infrastructure in its budding oil industry. PHOTO BY LIVE MINT

London based Standard Chartered Bank has been named new financial investment adviser in Mozambique State Oil and gas company Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos’, (ENH) in a highly competitive bid process

Standard Chartered in a joint partnership with Mozambique’s largest bank  Millennium BIM out competed several others including British multinational banking and financial services HSBC and local partner Banco Unico among others when it valued its stake at $721,000 compared to $1.3 million posted by HSBC and Banco Unico.

Mozambique is eyeing two major gas investment projects including one under American based Anadarko Petroleum in which the country would own a 10% and one under Italian multinational Oil and Gas company Eni at 15%.

The projects are born out of a discovery of massive Oil and gas reserves in Mozambique’s Rovuma Basin estimated to gear the country to a level of world’s third leading producer of oil and gas. It is estimated that full potential gas extractions is likely to push Mozambique to middle class status in the next decade

Each project will require investment exceeding the size of Mozambique’s $15 billion economy, a 2014 Standard Bank Group report shows.

The World Bank will finance the Standard Chartered contract under its Mining and Gas Technical Assistance Project.