MOZAMBIQUE’S Finance Minister Max Tonela is “very optimistic” that TotalEnergies will make a decision by March to resume work on its $20-billion liquefied natural gas export project that Islamic State-linked violence put on hold.
“What Total has required is a long-term security assurance” and the government thinks the necessary conditions are in place, Tonela said in a Sept. 16 interview in Maputo, the southeast African nation’s capital. “Of course, they have to analyse and take a decision on their own.”
The Paris-based energy company evacuated all employees and declared force majeure on the development — one of Africa’s biggest private investments yet — after a major attack in March last year on the town of Palma that’s less than 10 km away. While the arrival of troops from Rwanda and a regional bloc more than a year ago helped to beat back the insurgency, small-scale violence has continued in areas further away from the LNG project site on Mozambique’s northern coast.
The project could transform Mozambique’s $16-billion
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