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Pouyanne revealed this during the company’s strategy and outlook presentation in New York on Monday.
“We are moving on. Everything is ready. In fact, we are mobilizing on the ground. But we have the last piece of the decision to officially lift the force majeure,” Pouyanne said.
He said that the government of Mozambique “will approve the updated development plan because we need to update it with a new target in terms of starting operations.”
“It will be 2029 that we plan to start the operations. And of course, updating the budget with the impact of the force majeure. So that is currently being assessed and we’ll move, I think, very quickly on that,” Pouyanne said.
Earlier this year, Pouyanne stated that TotalEnergies and its partners plan to restart construction on the LNG project by mid-year.
This followed the Export-Import Bank of the United States’ reapproval of a $4.7 billion loan for the Mozambique LNG project.
After that, Pouyanne said in July that the partners and the Mozambique government are still working on restarting the project, hinting that it could be restarted in September.
TotalEnergies declared force majeure on the Mozambique LNG project in April 2021 and withdrew all personnel from the site due to new attacks.
Mozambique LNG includes the development of offshore gas fields in Mozambique’s Area 1 and a liquefaction plant at the Afungi complex.
Besides TotalEnergies, other partners in the project include Japan’s Mitsui, Mozambique’s ENH, Thailand’s PTT, and Indian firms ONGC, Bharat Petroleum, and Oil India.
Mozambique LNG’s EPC contractor is CCS JV, a venture between Saipem, McDermott, and Chiyoda.
“Completely under control”
“On the security side, we have been, I would say, reassured by the strong commitment of the government of Mozambique, including with the government of Rwanda,” Pouyanne said.
He said that there was an important agreement signed by both countries at the end of August.
“And we know that on our side, we have moved to what we call the containment mode, which is, in fact, that the peninsula of Afungi, where we will execute the project, which is a very large peninsula, is completely under control,” he said.
“And all the contractors working and all employees working for our project will be in this peninsula, working, living, transporting, and will be able to have a secure construction phase,” the CEO said.
“We assess that, of course, with our colleagues of ExxonMobil as well, and we are aligned in close cooperation on the fact that we can restart the operation quickly,” Pouyanne said.
Expansion
The TotalEnergies strategy and outlook presentation also shows that the company and its partners are planning “additional phases” of Mozambique LNG post 2030.
The presentation did not reveal further details.
According to the Mozambique LNG website, the plans for the approximately 65 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas include a two-unit liquefaction project with expansion capacity of up to 43 million tonnes per annum.