Extraction / Resources & Sovereignty
On February 25, 2026, TotalEnergies announced the full restart of its $20 billion Mozambique LNG project at the Afungi site in Cabo Delgado province. CEO Patrick Pouyanné declared, "The force majeure is over." President Daniel Chapo attended the ceremony. Over 4,000 workers are mobilised on site, of whom more than 3,000 are Mozambican nationals. First LNG is expected in 2029. The project is currently at 40% completion, with almost all engineering and procurement of main equipment executed during the force majeure period. Contracts awarded to Mozambican companies are expected to amount to more than $4 billion. The Mozambique LNG Foundation has allocated $200 million for socio-economic development in Cabo Delgado, with 7,000 farmers and fishermen already supported. Five days earlier, on January 29, Mozambique and TotalEnergies had formally agreed to relaunch construction, even as negotiations over additional costs linked to the five-year delay continue. President Chapo predicted that within 12 to 18 months, ExxonMobil’s Rovuma LNG project, which shares some facilities with TotalEnergies’, would also commence construction.
The restart came five years after the April 2021 suspension, triggered when Islamic State-affiliated insurgents launched a large-scale assault on the coastal town of Palma, located just over 10 kilometres from the Afungi LNG site. The attack killed dozens, displaced thousands and demonstrated that the insurgency, which had been escalating since 2017, could directly threaten one of Africa’s largest energy investments. TotalEnergies declared force majeure. The $20 billion project, designed to produce 13 million metric tonnes of LNG annually and make Mozambique a top-ten global gas producer, went dormant. Mozambique’s economy, which the IMF had projected would grow by 24% from Rovuma Basin gas revenues alone, lost its primary development catalyst. By the time construction restarted, the insurgency had killed at least 4,683 people, nearly half of them civilians, and forced over one million to flee their homes.
The security architecture that enabled the restart is specific and its sustainability is the central risk variable. Rwanda deployed approximately 1,000 troops to Cabo Delgado in July 2021 at Mozambique’s request. By 2026, the deployment had grown to over 4,000 troops, with approximately 3,000 specifically tasked with securing the LNG project perimeter and the strategic towns of Palma and Mocimboa da Praia. Rwandan forces rapidly recaptured Mocimboa da Praia from the insurgents in 2021, a turning point that enabled the stabilisation process. A Status of Forces Agreement signed in 2025 provides for the Rwandan deployment until at least 2029, when construction is expected to be completed and exports begin. The Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique withdrew in 2024 when its mandate expired. Rwanda is now the sole external security guarantor for the LNG corridor.
The funding of that guarantee has become a live issue. The European Union had been partially funding Rwanda’s deployment but became reluctant to continue, according to Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe. In May 2026, Nduhungirehe announced that Rwanda had decided to deal exclusively with the Government of Mozambique, which "has secured and will continue to secure the necessary funding for the Rwandan security forces in Cabo Delgado." He did not specify the amount or duration. The shift from EU co-funding to Mozambican self-funding raises the question of whether a country with a GDP of approximately $20 billion can sustain a 4,000-troop foreign deployment while simultaneously managing its share of a $20 billion LNG construction programme, servicing external debt, and governing a post-election political transition.
The insurgency has not been defeated. It has been contained. The ISS Africa analysis, published in March and April 2026, describes a layered security apparatus around the Afungi site that includes Rwandan troops, Mozambican forces and international private security contractors conducting intelligence, surveillance and protection operations. Insurgents have not demonstrated the capability to directly attack the project site since 2021. But the ISS explicitly notes that this is "largely due to the extensive security apparatus protecting it," not because the insurgent capability has been eliminated. Sporadic attacks continue across Cabo Delgado. Analysts tracking the insurgency confirm that fighting persists outside the secured perimeter. The insurgency is contained around the LNG site. It is not resolved in the province.
For the EU gas ban article in this series, Mozambique LNG is one of the major commissioning-wave projects expected to enter global markets in the 2028-2030 window. The permanent EU ban on Russian gas imports creates structural demand for non-Russian LNG. Mozambique, with over 100 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves in the Rovuma Basin, has the resource base to become a significant supplier. At 13 million tonnes per annum for TotalEnergies’ project alone, plus the Rovuma LNG and Coral South FLNG volumes, Mozambique could account for a meaningful share of the 50 to 75 million tonnes per annum of new African LNG capacity projected for the late 2020s. The EU gas demand signal documented in this series identifies Mozambique as one of the critical supply-side variables. The Cabo Delgado security situation is what determines whether that supply materialises on schedule.
The resource curse dynamics are textbook. Cabo Delgado is one of Mozambique’s poorest provinces. The gas reserves sit offshore, but the processing, liquefaction and export infrastructure sits onshore, in communities that have historically received minimal benefit from Maputo-directed national development programmes. The insurgency, which began as a local grievance movement before aligning with the Islamic State Central Africa Province, drew on exactly this disconnect: resource wealth flowing through a province whose population remained impoverished, marginalised and underserved. The ISS warns that the lack of transparency in managing public assets associated with the gas project could "turn this opportunity into a long-term liability." The $200 million Foundation and the $4 billion in local contracts represent TotalEnergies’ response. Whether they reach the communities that the insurgency drew from, and whether they do so visibly enough to undercut the grievance narrative, will determine whether the security stabilisation holds beyond the military perimeter.
The cost escalation question remains unresolved. TotalEnergies and Mozambique agreed to restart construction "even as they continue negotiations over additional costs linked to delays." Five years of force majeure, during which equipment was procured and engineering was completed but construction was frozen, created carrying costs that must be allocated between the operator and the government. The additional cost burden, compounded by global inflation in LNG construction costs since 2021, means the project’s all-in economics have shifted. At current LNG prices, inflated by the Hormuz disruption, the project remains viable. At lower prices, the cost overruns could compress margins to the point where the fiscal terms require renegotiation, a dynamic documented in the state participation article as the trigger for disputes across multiple African jurisdictions.
For the series, Mozambique LNG connects to six documented themes. The first is the EU gas ban: the permanent demand signal that makes the project bankable at the scale required. The second is the France defence retreat: TotalEnergies is a French major operating in a country where the security guarantee is provided by Rwanda, not by France, and where the EU’s reluctance to fund the security deployment creates a gap that the operator’s commercial interests cannot fill directly. The third is the multipolar competition: Rwanda’s security role in Mozambique positions President Kagame as a regional security provider, a role that complements Rwanda’s positioning as a fintech passporting hub and the seat of the Kigali International Financial Centre documented in the passporting article. The fourth is the blended finance architecture: if Mozambique LNG is to be replicated as a model for sub-Saharan LNG development, the security cost must be incorporated into the project finance structure, not treated as an externality. The fifth is the Hormuz crisis: the effective closure of the strait has elevated LNG prices and reinforced the strategic value of non-Hormuz LNG sources, of which Mozambique, shipping from the Mozambique Channel to Europe via the Cape, is among the most significant. The sixth is the infrastructure report: Africa’s fuel dependency is a structural vulnerability that domestic LNG production is designed to address, but only if the projects reach completion.
The structural question is whether the security-enabled restart of Mozambique LNG represents a durable investment framework or a temporary arrangement sustained by Rwandan military commitment and elevated LNG prices. If Rwandan troops withdraw before the project reaches first LNG in 2029, the security architecture collapses and the investment is at risk. If LNG prices decline from Hormuz-elevated levels to pre-crisis norms, the cost-escalated project economics tighten. If the EU’s reluctance to fund the security deployment spreads to other external partners, the funding burden falls entirely on a Mozambican government that cannot afford it from its own resources. The gas is in the ground. The equipment is on site. The workers are mobilised. The force majeure is lifted. But the insurgency is contained, not defeated. The security is guaranteed by a single foreign partner whose funding source has just changed. And the cost negotiations are unresolved. The restart is real. Whether the completion follows depends on variables that no engineering plan can control.