During the presentation of its 2023 results, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné announced that the company plans to resume operations in the Rovuma basin in Cabo Delgado province by the end of this year.
The French oil company suspended the project to build a plant to produce and export natural gas in March 2021, due to the insecurity caused by the terrorist attacks.
Pouyanné said that the company is monitoring the situation closely to avoid a premature return that could result in new evacuations. He pointed out that there are engineering issues to be resolved, but he hopes to resume the project by the end of the year.
In addition, he emphasized that TotalEnergies has made progress with suppliers and contractors interested in reactivating the project. The company is mobilizing contractors again and is close to being ready to resume work. However, financial institutions around the world need to be reactivated.
Mozambique has three development projects approved to exploit the natural gas reserves in the Rovuma basin, considered to be among the largest in the world. Two of these projects are larger and involve channeling the gas from the seabed to land, cooling it in a factory and then exporting it by sea in a liquid state.
The project led by TotalEnergies (Area 1 consortium) went ahead until it was suspended indefinitely after the armed attack on Palma in March 2021. The other project, led by ExxonMobil and Eni (Area 4 consortium), still has no announcement in sight.
A third completed and smaller project belongs to the Area 4 consortium and consists of a floating platform for capturing and processing gas for export, directly at sea, which began operations in November 2022.
