French energy giant TotalEnergies officially relaunched a $20 billion Mozambique gas project on Thursday after a five-year pause following a deadly jihadist attack.
TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne announced the restart of the Mozambique LNG project at a ceremony attended by President Daniel Chapo.
“I am delighted to announce the full restart of the Mozambique LNG project … The force majeure is over,” Pouyanne told the event.
The $20 billion project in the northern Cabo Delgado province on the border with Tanzania was suspended following a bloody jihadist attack in 2021 that killed an estimated 800 people.
TotalEnergies had already lifted in October the force majeure it declared after the attack, and has sought compensation of $4.5 billion in cost overruns linked to the delay from the Mozambique government.
Chapo’s office said in a statement that the restart of the project “presents a significant milestone for the national economy and reaffirms the confidence of international partners in Mozambique’s energy, institutional and human potential”.
Reportedly, the largest private investment in Africa’s energy infrastructure, the project is expected to generate thousands of jobs and help make the country one of the world’s biggest LNG exporters.
But environmental groups have called it a “climate bomb” that would bring little benefit to Mozambicans, more than 80 per cent of whom lived below the poverty line of three dollars per day in 2022, according to the World Bank.
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While northern Mozambique has not experienced an attack on the scale of the one in 2021, there are regular attacks on civilians and troops blamed on jihadist insurgents.
The insurgency in northern Mozambique has left more than 6,200 people dead since 2017, according to the NGO Acled, which collects data on conflict zones.
