Communication - Presse
TotalEnergies Hires Washington Lobbyist to Revive Funding for Mozambique Gas Project
According to the agency, the planned onshore facility – the cost of which was estimated at 1.26 trillion meticals (20 billion dollars) when the project was launched – aims to monetise the country’s main gas discoveries by liquefying and exporting them in tankers. The venture had attracted the largest funding ever recorded in Africa before attacks by Islamic State-linked militants near the site in 2021 led the company to withdraw its staff and suspend operations.
For the project to start production on schedule, it would have been necessary to restart activities by the end of 2024. However, TotalEnergies, which owns 26.5 per cent of the project, confirmed that operations in Mozambique remain suspended.
The French oil company hired the lobby group Primus Responsum to ensure the final approval of the financing by the board of the Export-Import Bank of the United States of America (Eximbank), which had agreed in 2020 to contribute 278 billion meticals (4.7 billion dollars) to the development of the project.
According to a description of Primus Responsum’s activities, quoted by Bloomberg, the group was to ‘identify the key people relevant to this assessment, including Eximbank and Biden administration personnel, and urge them to support the bank board’s approval before 20 January 2025’.
TotalEnergies did not comment on the hiring of the lobby group, the US funding or the timeline of the project. Eximbank and Primus Responsum also did not respond to emails sent by Bloomberg requesting statements.
According to the news agency, Primus Responsum would receive a ‘stage payment’ of 15.8 million meticals (250,000 dollars) if the Eximbank board approved funding for the project by 20 January 2025.
In October, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said that the company remains committed to developing the project, highlighting some progress made in relation to the security situation, but that the company is still awaiting approval from three export credit agencies.
