Oil company Total withdraws from Mozambique due to jihadist threat
The French oil company Total confirmed on Monday that the security situation in northern Mozambique, besieged by jihadism, has led it to withdraw all its personnel from the LNG gas project.
"Total confirms the withdrawal of all Mozambique LNG project personnel from the Afungi site," it said in a statement. "This situation leads Total, as operator of Mozambique LNG project, to declare force majeure," it said.
The company expressed its solidarity with the local government and population and hoped that the action taken by the country's authorities and its regional and international partners would lead to a lasting return to stability in the province of Cabo Delgado.
The jihadist organisation Al Shabab, which is unrelated to its namesake group in Somalia, has been terrorising northern Mozambique since 2017 and has so far caused thousands of deaths and nearly 700,000 displaced citizens.
The siege on the town of Palma that began on March 24 came shortly after Total and the government of Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi announced that they would "soon" resume construction activities on the project in Afungi "with the implementation of additional security measures".
On March 27, however, the company announced the suspension of the reactivation of that project and minimised its workforce in the area, over which it has now confirmed a complete withdrawal.
The Mozambique LNG project to build a 13.1 million tonne per year liquefied natural gas plant in the African country had secured $14.9 billion in financing, as announced by Total last July.
The financing deal, the largest for a project of its kind in Africa, according to the company, was closed with loans underwritten by eight export credit agencies, 19 commercial banks and the African Development Bank.
