By America Hernandez and Wendell Roelf
CAPE TOWN/PARIS (Reuters) -Mozambique’s President Daniel Chapo met with Patrick Pouyanne, the chief executive of TotalEnergies, on Monday to discuss several of the company’s projects in the southern African country, including a long-delayed $20 billion liquefied natural gas development.
Mozambique LNG, which had been slated to restart construction by the end of 2024 and begin producing gas in 2029, saw that deadline slip when the French oil major last week confirmed that force majeure had yet to be lifted on the project.
“During the conversation, Pouyanne reaffirmed TotalEnergies’ commitment to resuming the project, currently suspended since 2021, due to security challenges in the region,” Chapo said in a post on X on Monday.
Chapo said Mozambique, reeling from months of post-election unrest, acknowledged the importance of the Cabo Delgado project for the country’s growth prospects.
“Efforts are therefore being made to ensure the necessary stability for its implementation,” Chapo said.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of a two-day energy summit in Tanzania.
Pouyanne, speaking Tuesday at the summit, added that they also discussed potential gas-to-power projects for the local population, as well as progress on a $5 billion hydropower dam and plant Total is developing alongside EDF and Sumitomo.
The hydroelectricity project can’t get underway if Mozambique doesn’t also build the expensive power lines that are crucial to transporting the energy to paying customers, the CEO said in a panel on barriers to private investment.
“I was discussing the issue yesterday with the president of Mozambique, where we have a hydropower project, and I told him we cannot start the hydro because we don’t see the transmission line behind it,” Pouyanne said.
“It’s difficult in terms of huge capital to attract … You could attract international and private investors on infrastructure (projects), like transmission lines, but it has to be managed … otherwise I’m afraid this bottleneck will remain,” Pouyanne said.
(Reporting by Wendell Roelf in Capetown and America Hernandez in Paris, Editing by Bhargav Acharya and David Evans)
