Energy buyers in Europe have been eagerly anticipating production from Eni SpA’s project in northern waters to help ease global gas shortages ahead of the crucial winter heating season.
Europe is ramping up efforts to replace Russian gas with LNG, sending spot prices for the fuel soaring around the world.
The tanker, known as British Mentor, was due to arrive on August 24 at the floating Coral-South LNG facility that Italy’s Eni is ordering.
After spending a few days adrift off the coast of Mozambique, it changed its destination over the weekend and began sailing toward Qalhat, Oman, home to another LNG terminal, ship tracking data compiled by the Bloomberg program show.
BP Plc operates the British Mentor and has the right to buy all of Coral-South’s production, which is planned at 3.4 million tons per year. The project is planned to start production in September or October, the National Petroleum Institute said.