By Eduard Gismatullin and Fred Pals – Feb 23, 2012 9:45 AM GMT
Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA)s $1.6 billion bid for Cove Energy Plc (COV) starts a race to develop natural-gas fields off Mozambiques Indian Ocean coast that may hold more than Norways entire reserves.
Winning Cove would give Shell an 8.5 percent stake in a block where Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) has found 30 trillion cubic feet of gas. Italys Eni SpA (ENI) has discovered even more in a neighboring area. Together, theres sufficient fuel for the development of two $20 billion liquefied natural gas plants to supply customers in Asia, according to Deutsche Bank AG.