Good afternoon. These are interesting times for the Mozambique LNG project in Cabo Delgado. TotalEnergies ought to be celebrating, after a key decision apparently went its way last week: according to Estevao Pale, Mozambique’s minister of energy and mineral resources, the US Exim Bank re-approved $4.7 billion in financial support for the Mozambique LNG project. Without that approval, the project could have been stuck in the mud; with it, Total can probably reconfirm enough financing for the project, even if some of its original lenders are still wavering, or have definitively dropped out.

In the wavering category is the Netherlands, whose own export promotion bank, Atradius, needs to reconfirm its support for the project. But the country’s finance minister has now commissioned an independent report into human rights abuses by Mozambican security forces in Palma, in particular “the roles of the various security actors in the region and their relationship with project owner Total.”

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That decision comes on the back of reports in international media of abuses carried out against the local population in the wake of the insurgent attack on Palma in 2021. But Total is also facing its own investigation into whether it fulfilled its duty of care to contractors and the local population during that attack. On Saturday, French prosecutors said they had opened a manslaughter investigation against the company. Total responded that it “categorically rejects these accusations."