Mozambique's government has said it has created a conducive environment for the resumption of construction of a $20bn liquefied natural gas (LNG) project operated by French energy major TotalEnergies.

Work at Mozambique LNG, located north of the southeastern African country, started soon after the TotalEnergies-led partnership made financial investment decision in 2019.

An attack by Islamist insurgents near the site in early 2021 forced the consortium to suspend work and evacuate most staff. 

However, TotalEnergies' CEO, Patrick Pouyanne, announced recently that work will soon resume at the 13mn tonnes per year plant, noting improvements in the security situation in the Cabo Delgado region where the project is located.

Reuters quoted Mozambique's energy minister, Estevao Pale, as telling Portuguese news agency Lusa on July 14 that all was set for the restart.

"It was a meeting with the perspective of restarting activities," he said, referring to a meeting that Pouyanne had with Mozambican President Daniel Chapo three days earlier.

"At the government level, all the conditions are being created to allow investors to restart activities as quickly as possible."

The project received a boost in March 2025, when the US Export-Import Bank reapproved a $5bn loan for it. 

TotalEnergies holds a 26.5% interest in Mozambique LNG, Japan's Mitsui & Co owns 20%, and Mozambique's ENH 15%, with three Indian and Thai partners sharing the remainder.

The insurgency in Cabo Delgado started in 2017 and peaked from mid-2020 to early 2021 when it displaced more than 1mn civilians. A conflict tracker, ACLED, estimates that 6,000 people have died since it started.

Mozambique, with support from its southern African neighbours and Rwanda regained ground from the rebels from mid-2021 but the UN says resurging violence has displaced at least 48,000 people since January 2025.