11-08-09 Mozambican energy firm Oilmoz has moved the site for a planned $ 8 bn oil refinery to avoid putting a nearby elephant reserve at risk, the chairman said. The proposed site for the 350,000 bpd refinery has been shifted from the southernmost district of Matutuine, home of the Maputo Elephant Reserve, to Marracuene, about 125 km to the north.
"The zone of Matutuine is a sensitive zone from the environmental point of view. There's an elephant reserve and it's also a zone of biodiversity," Chairman Leonardo Simao told.

Simao, a former foreign minister of Mozambique, said the change of site won't slow construction on the refinery, which is scheduled to open in 2014. Mozambique's only oil refinery closed 24 years ago, leaving the impoverished country dependent on fuel imports.
Oilmoz in March received $ 50 mm from investors to begin environmental impact and feasibility studies for the project in partnership with Shell Global Solutions, a unit of Royal Dutch Shell. Oilmoz plans to submit the project for final government approval early next year, Simao said. Oilmoz says the facility will also include a 500 MW power plant, a petrochemical derivatives plant, a wastewater treatment unit, a fuel storage facility, a hospital and a housing project.

Mozambique has been working to rebuild its elephant population since a 16-year-civil war ended in 1992. Loki Osborn, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge, has called the Maputo Elephant Reserve "potentially one of Mozambique's most important natural assets."
The park is home to some 300 elephants.