Pressure grows on UK to quit African LNG project

Concerns raised about human rights and the environment

- NICK FERRIS

Campaigners have demanded that the UK government pull its funding for a natural gas mega project in Mozambique – alleging that it breaches Britain’s human rights and environmental obligations.

The project in question is a $20bn (£15bn) liquified natural gas (LNG) development located in the Cabo Delgado region of Mozambique. The project, called Mozambique LNG, has been halted since 2021 after violence from an Isis-backed group led to 183 contractors being trapped in a hotel for two days, with 10 people killed while apparently trying to escape, including British national Philip Mawer.

In all, the ongoing insurgency in the area has resulted in an estimated 6,000 deaths since the conflict began in 2017, with some 600,000 people displaced.

In a letter seen by The Independent, campaign group Oil Change International (OCI) argues that the violence and other issues over the protection of the project makes a potential $1.15bn investment by UK Export Finance, a department of the UK government, untenable. Continuing to finance the project is also not compatible with environmental commitments made in 2021 to no longer finance fossil fuels abroad, OCI argues.

A tale of violence, delay and legal action was never meant to be the story of Mozambique’s foray into natural gas, after some 180 trillion cubic feet of gas was discovered off the country’s coast in 2010. In 2016, the International Monetary Fund projected 34 per cent GDP growth for Mozambique by 2021. However, actual economic growth was around 2.5 per cent.

TotalEnergies, the French energy firm, is currently in the process of trying to restart the project by the middle of this year. “The security situation has improved,” CEO Patrick Pouyanne said on the sidelines of the World Gas conference earlier this month.