Air France, one of Europe’s largest airlines, says it will start flying directly to Mozambique from Paris, as it seeks to boost traffic to one of Africa’s burgeoning economies.

Air France already operates flights from Paris to Libreville, Gabon, but not to Mozambique, a country whose economy “is growing fast and has become attractive because of the discovery of deposits of natural gas,” said airline group’s vice-president Frank Legre.

João Abreu, president of the Institute of Civil Aviation of Mozambique (IACM), said that negotiations between Mozambique and the airline were the result of a memorandum signed this year with his French counterpart outlining a direct link between France and Mozambique, as well as covering the French islands in the Indian Ocean.

Mozambique is believed to have the fourth largest natural gas reserves in the world, after Russia, Iran and Qatar. In 2010 and 2011, over 4,200 billion cubic metres (150 trillion cubic feet) reserves of natural gas was discovered in the Rocuma Basin, off the coast the northern Cabo Delgado Province in Mozambique.

Once developed, this could make Mozambique one of the largest producers of liquefied natural gas in the world.

In 2004, South African company Sasol also started production of natural gas from the Temane gas field in the South of Mozambique and in 2011 produced about 3.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the Temane and nearby Pande gas fields. Sasol exported the gas through an 865-km pipeline to supply its South African chemical plants.

By George Mpofu