Page 4 - DMEA Week 07 2021

DMEA COMMENTARY DMEA

Mozambique LNG project may

be back on track soon

Total’s CEO says work may resume by the end of March, pointing to his company’s security

agreement with the Mozambican government and insisting production will begin in 2024

MOZAMBIQUE PATRICK Pouyanné, the CEO of France’s Total, On site and on schedule
has said that his company aims to resume work According to press reports, the proposed
on the Mozambique LNG project before the perimeter will include not only the construc-
WHAT: end of March, and there are indications that his tion site but also related facilities such as a
Pouyanné says optimism is not misplaced. He expressed these work camp.
Mozambique LNG can hopes last week, when he reminded reporters It will also cover the town of Palma and its
restart construction on that Total had signed a security agreement with bay, as well as two islands offshore, and would
the Afungi Peninsula Mozambique’s government in order to safeguard extend past the town of Olombe in the south. It
soon. its construction site on the Afungi Peninsula. will not include Mocímboa da Praia, a port in
The French company and its non-operating Cabo Delgado that Total and its partners had
WHY: partners in the Mozambique LNG consortium been using as a delivery point for the equipment
The company and its have been building a natural gas liquefaction needed to build the Mozambique LNG plant on
partners have had to plant and other onshore facilities supporting the the Afungi Peninsula before losing access to it
evacuate staff following development of gas at the offshore block known last August.
attacks on nearby areas as Area 1 at the site. However, they evacuated Pouyanné also said that Total and its part-
by Islamist insurgents. most workers in January and have slowed the ners hoped to remain on schedule even though
pace of operations. they had to evacuate around 9,000 workers
WHAT NEXT: Under the agreement between Total and the from the onshore site earlier this year, bringing
If FADM upholds Mozambican government, all areas of the Cabo the size of the team working at the site down
its commitments, Delgado province within 25 km of the site must to about 1,000. The Mozambique LNG con-
Mozambique LNG will be secured by the country’s armed forces, known sortium is still working to drive the offshore
have a better chance of as Forças Armadas de Defesa de Moçambique and engineering aspects of the project forward,
beginning production on (FADM). According to Pouyanné, if FADM and plans to bring the liquefaction plant’s
schedule in 2024. upholds its part of the deal, the investors will be first 6.44mn tonne per year (tpy) production
able to achieve their objectives. train on stream in 2024 have not changed, he
“If, on the ground, the armed forces and the stressed.
police are able to re-control the area that we “Stopping for two or three months does not
agreed together, I think by the end of the first mean we can’t hit the 2024 target,” the Total CEO
quarter we should be able to restart the work,” he remarked.
was quoted as saying by Bloomberg and other “My highest priority is the security of ... the
agencies. “That’s the objective that we set to our- staff who work on the ground in Mozambique,”
selves jointly with the government.” he added.

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