Carlos Joaquim Zacarias is the Chairman of the National Petroleum Institute, the regulatory body for upstream petroleum activities in Mozambique. He assumed the role in August 2015 and quickly had to led the negotiation of the Legal framework for the Rovuma Basin projects including approvals for Coral South FLNG, Golfinho/Atum and Rovuma LNG Plan of Developments.

As Chairman, Zacarias is focused on establishing a stable, predictable and attractive regulatory framework for foreign investment, in line with international standards and at the same time ensuring that the natural gas production projects being implemented in Mozambique generate added value for the national economy, catapulting other sectors of activity, allowing to catalyze and maximize the participation of nationals throughout the value chain and life cycle of natural gas projects.

Zacarias has an extensive expertise in a wide array of strategic, exploration, safety and regulatory matters of the petroleum industry as a result of his executive and management experience.

Over his 16 years at INP, he served as Vice President for Projects and Development, where he dealt with the promising and growing gas production and transport industry of Mozambique from 2005 until 2008, when he was appointed Vice President for Exploration, supervising and monitoring all exploration activities that led to the largest discoveries in Rovuma Basin, so far.

Prior to joining INP, Zacarias held management positions at the National Directorate for Coal and Hydrocarbons (DNCH) at a technical department responsible for supervising petroleum and coal activities, where he was involved in the revision of the legal package, exploration activities and implementation of Pande/Temane Gas Project.

Zacarias holds a master degree on Petroleum Geology from the Petrochemical Institute of Baku, Azerbaijan.