Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi assured on Wednesday that conditions are in place to allow TotalEnergies to resume its huge natural gas project in the country, suspended since 2021 following a major jihadist attack a few kilometers away.
The poor but resource-rich, Muslim-majority province of Cabo Delgado in the northeast, which borders Tanzania, has been plagued by violence from armed groups since late 2017. Nearly 4,700 people have already been killed, including over 2,000 civilians. One million were forced to leave their homes.
At the end of March 2021, a coordinated attack on the coastal town of Palma forced the French group to suspend a 16.5 billion euro natural gas project until further notice. Facilities still under construction on the Afungi Peninsula have been evacuated.
“The cooperation and coordination with Total is very favorable. The working environment is conducive for the company to resume operations at any time,” said Filipe Nyusi, speaking at a conference on mining and energy in the Mozambican capital Maputo.
TotalEnergies has been cautious for several months about the possibility of restarting its operations in Mozambique. Its CEO, Patrick Pouyanné, visited the country in February and met with the Mozambican president. Last month, the French giant’s Italian subcontractor, Saipem, announced that it was preparing to resume work, saying that it had been informed that “safety has improved.
