Mozambique | Just In: TotalEnergies close to returning to north – Pouyanné

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Mozambique | Just In: TotalEnergies close to returning to north – Pouyanné

2:02 CAT | 07 Feb 2024

File photo: Lusa

The CEO of oil company TotalEnergies said on Wednesday at the presentation of results that the company is “not far from having everything ready” to restart work on natural gas exploration in northern Mozambique.

“We are mobilising the contractors again and we are not far away from having everything ready” to restart the work, said Patrick Pouyanné during the presentation of the company’s 2023 results and 2024 objectives, taking place in London on Wednesday.

“The last part is the refinancing of the project, which was suspended, let’s say when there were the events [of terrorism that forced the suspension of the project],” he added.

For TotalEnergies, what is needed now is to “reactivate the financial institutions around the world, and then when that’s done, we’ll restart the project,” Pouyanné concluded, without giving any dates.

READ: TotalEnergies raises dividend, shrugging off drop in earnings

Mozambique has three development projects approved to exploit the natural gas reserves in the Rovuma basin, classified as one of the largest in the world, off the coast of Cabo Delgado.

Two of these projects are larger and involve channelling the gas from the seabed to land, cooling it in a factory to export it by sea in a liquid state.

The largest is led by TotalEnergies (Area 1 consortium), and work progressed until it was suspended indefinitely after an armed attack on Palma in March 2021, when the French energy company declared that it would only resume work when the area was safe.

The other is the still unannounced investment led by ExxonMobil and Eni (Area 4 consortium).

A third completed, smaller project also belongs to the Area 4 consortium and consists of a floating platform to capture and process gas for export directly at sea, which started up in November 2022.

The insurgency has led to a military response since July 2021, with support from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), liberating districts near the gas projects, but new waves of attacks have emerged to the south of the region and in neighbouring Nampula province.

Source: Lusa