TotalEnergies relaunches $20 billion Mozambique gas project 5 years after jihadist attack

Five years after being shut down by a devastating jihadist attack, French petroleum giant TotalEnergies is relaunching a massive gas project in northern Mozambique.

Total declared a force majeure in 2021 after a jihadist attack in the northern Cabo Delgado province killed some 800 people. Total is asking the Mozambique government for $4.5 billion in cost overruns linked to the delay.

But the LNG project is expected to general thousands of jobs. Reportedly the largest private investment in Africa’s energy infrastructure, it already employs 4,000 people, 80 percent of them Mozambique nationals.

Italy’s ENI and America's ExxonMobil also have gas projects in the area, leading analysts to predict that Mozambique could become one of the world’s top ten natural gas producers.

But not everyone is happy at the developments. Environmentalists have called the $20 billion project a “climate bomb” that will have little benefit for Mozambicans, more than 80 percent of whom live below the poverty line.

Total is seeking a 10-year extension to its concession, more than double the length of the delay. It was not immediately clear if Maputo would approve the extension.

Security situation

Northern Mozambique has been battered by a bloody jihadist insurgency since late 2017.

While the region 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.

In 2021, insurgents stormed the port town of Palma, a few kilometres from the TotalEnergies site, sending thousands of people fleeing into the surrounding forest. Conflict tracker ACLED estimates that more than 800 people were killed.

The insurgency has left more than 6,200 people dead since 2017, according to ACLED, which collects data on conflict zones. It has been blamed on a group referred to as "Al-Shabaab" by locals and authorities -- despite no known link to the Somali jihadist group -- that seeks to impose Sharia law in Cabo Delgado, a neglected outpost that has become fertile ground for radical ideology.