GLNG: TotalEnergies hopeful of construction restart of Mozambique LNG by summer

French oil supermajor TotalEnergies has revealed it is hopeful that its megaproject Mozambique LNG will be restarted by mid-2024.

The $20bn project in northern Mozambique boasting a production capacity of 12.8mn tonnes per year (tpy) of LNG began construction in 2019. However, it has been in limbo since April 2021, when TotalEnergies declared force majeure following a terror attack a month earlier.

After the attack by Islamist terror group al-Shabaab on the town of Palma in Cabo Delgado Province, close to the Afungi project site, TotalEnergies evacuated over 2,500 people from the town, half of whom were working on the project.

In December 2022 TotalEnergies hired Jean-Christophe Rufin, a humanitarian action and human rights activist to complete an independent mission examining the humanitarian and security situation in the region.

In May 2023, TotalEnergies released an action plan for the restart of construction on the project. The report called for the establishment of a $200mn foundation to support socio-economic development programmes in the province and compensation for local villagers affected by the project.