ExIm Bank Updates $4.7 Billion US Loan For TotalEnergies - A French Company - To Build LNG Terminal In Mozambique

Ed. - Be sure to ask your Trump-humping friends how this supports "American energy dominance", should the occasion arise . . .

In the conflict-riven northern corner of Mozambique, a huge gas export terminal is moving ahead with the backing of the United States government. Mozambique LNG would be one of the largest fossil fuel projects in Africa, with the capacity to export up to 43 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas per year at full capacity. The U.S. Export-Import Bank initially approved a $4.7 billion loan for the project in 2019, during the first Trump administration, when the development was led by Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum.

Since then, however, Anadarko sold its stake to France-based TotalEnergies, an Islamist insurgency forced a four-year halt to construction and security forces were accused of committing war crimes against civilians. The United States also became the world’s leading LNG exporter, setting up Mozambique LNG as a potential competitor to American projects. “It doesn’t make any sense as to why the U.S. government, using U.S. taxpayer money, is funding a French company in Mozambique,” said Andrew Bogrand, a senior policy advisor for natural resource justice at Oxfam America, a nonprofit that fights inequality. Bogrand traveled to the region last year and spoke with locals who reported continued insurgent attacks and kidnappings. He said the project would worsen climate change by unlocking a large gas field and is contributing to the region’s instability. The conflict has killed at least 6,400 people since 2017, including at least 20 over the last month, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data. “This is end-of-the-line extractivism,” Bogrand said.

In December, British and Dutch export credit agencies withdrew more than $2 billion in support for the project after a human rights group accused TotalEnergies of being complicit in the atrocities allegedly committed by government forces. Despite the setback, TotalEnergies announced last month that construction was finally restarting, with the U.S. credit agency’s loan the largest single source of financing, according to data compiled by the Energy Policy Research Foundation.

The Export-Import Bank declined to comment and did not reply to questions for this article. In a press release announcing the loan amendment last year, it said the project would support 16,400 American jobs across 14 states at businesses that would supply equipment and services to Mozambique LNG. It said the project would not adversely affect U.S. LNG exporters, and that the loan would help counter the Chinese and Russian governments, which it said would have supported the project if the U.S. government did not.

EDIT

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13022026/trump-administration-finances-french-oil-project-in-mozambique/