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Giant Mozambique gas project resumes after 5-year security suspension
French energy giant TotalEnergies relaunched construction Thursday on a massive gas project in northern Mozambique that was halted for five years after a jihadist attack that claimed hundreds of lives.
Reportedly the largest private investment in Africa's energy infrastructure, the Mozambique liquefied natural gas project is expected to generate thousands of jobs and help make the country one of the world's biggest LNG exporters.
TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne announced the restart of work at a ceremony near the site of the project in the gas-rich Cabo Delgado province, which has been plagued by insurgency for around eight years.
"I am delighted to announce the full restart of the Mozambique LNG project... The force majeure is over," Pouyanne said at the event attended by President Daniel Chapo.
The $20 billion project near the border with Tanzania was suspended after a 2021 jihadist attack that killed an estimated 800 people.
There are already more than 4,000 workers on site and 80 percent are Mozambican nationals, said Pouyanne, whose company owns a 26.5 percent stake in the Mozambique LNG consortium.
"This project will make the region a new source of global energy security," he said.
TotalEnergies had already lifted in October the force majeure suspension it declared after the bloodshed.
It is seeking compensation of $4.5 billion in cost overruns linked to the delay from the Mozambique government.
It is also pushing for a 10-year extension to its concession, more than double the length of the delay, but it was not immediately clear if Maputo would approve.
- 'Restoring confidence' -
"It is a day of celebration for Mozambique, for Africa and for the world," Chapo said.
The resumption of work showed the country was "capable of overcoming challenges and restoring the confidence of domestic and foreign investors", he said.
Environmental groups have denounced the LNG project as a major "climate bomb" that would bring little benefit to Mozambicans, more than 80 percent of whom lived below the poverty line of $3 per day in 2022, according to World Bank data.
The TotalEnergies gas project is among several in the Cabo Delgado area, with others involving Italian group ENI and the American oil giant ExxonMobil.
Mozambique's deposits could make the impoverished nation one of the world's 10 largest natural gas producers, "contributing 20 percent of African production by 2040", according to a 2024 report by the audit firm Deloitte.
The TotalEnergies-led consortium initially secured a $15.4 billion financing agreement involving 30 lenders.
But the British and Dutch governments withdrew financial support in early December 2025, including $1.15 billion promised by Britain via its export credit agency UKEF.
TotalEnergies subsequently announced that the other partners had "unanimously agreed to provide additional equity".
The project's relaunch comes as TotalEnergies faces two legal proceedings in France, including a manslaughter investigation after survivors and relatives of victims of the 2021 attack on the port town of Palma, a few kilometres from the TotalEnergies site, accused the French energy giant of failing to protect its subcontractors.
The multinational is also the subject of a complaint for "complicity in war crimes" filed by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), a German NGO, with France's national anti-terrorism prosecutor.
TotalEnergies rejects all the accusations.
While Cabo Delgado has not experienced another attack on the scale of the 2021 assault, there are still regular attacks on civilians and troops, including beheadings and kidnappings.
More than 6,400 people have been killed since the Islamic State-linked insurgency began in 2017, according to conflict tracking group ACLED.
The violence has also displaced tens of thousands of people.
After Russia's Wagner Group failed to contain the long-running insurgency, Rwandan troops were deployed to the area in 2021. Three were killed in May 2025 and several Mozambican soldiers have also reportedly lost their lives.
M.Moreau--JdCdC
