Maputo (AFP) - French energy giant TotalEnergies relaunched construction Thursday on a massive gas project in northern Mozambique that was halted for five years after a jihadist attack claimed hundreds of lives.

Reportedly the largest private investment in Africa’s energy infrastructure, the Mozambique liquefied natural gas project is expected to generate thousands of jobs and help make the country one of the world’s biggest LNG exporters.

“I am delighted to announce the full restart of the Mozambique LNG project,” TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne announced at a ceremony in the gas-rich Cabo Delgado province which has been plagued by insurgency for around eight years.

With production due to start in 2029, “This project will make the region a new source of global energy security,” he said at the event attended by President Daniel Chapo.

There are already more than 4,000 workers on site and 80 percent are Mozambican nationals, said Pouyanne, whose company owns a 26.5 percent stake in the Mozambique LNG consortium.

The $20 billion project near the border with Tanzania – one of the largest LNG projects on the continent – was suspended after a 2021 jihadist seige and attack on the nearby town of Palma killed an estimated 800 people.

TotalEnergies lifted in October the force majeure suspension it declared after the bloodshed.

The French oil giant is seeking compensation of $4.5 billion in cost overruns linked to the delay, which the Mozambique government has said it is assessing.

It is also pushing for a 10-year extension to its concession, more than double the length of the delay.

- ‘Restoring confidence’ -

“It is a day of celebration for Mozambique, for Africa and for the world,” Chapo said at the opening ceremony.

Some 17,000 workers would be hired during the construction phase, he said.

“Over its life cycle, it is estimated that the Mozambique LNG project could generate revenues for the Mozambican state in the order of 35 billion dollars from taxes, oil profits and other fiscal instruments, contributing decisively to the financing of national development,” he said.

The country’s economic growth is expected to accelerate sharply to 10 percent when Mozambique LNG starts production, according to IMF estimates in 2024.

But environmental groups have denounced the development as a major “climate bomb” that would bring little benefit to Mozambicans, more than 80 percent of whom lived below the poverty line of $3 per day in 2022, according to World Bank data.

Other gas projects in the same area involve Italian group ENI and the American oil giant ExxonMobil.

Mozambique’s natural gas deposits could make the impoverished nation one of the world’s 10 largest natural gas producers, according to a 2024 report by the audit firm Deloitte.

The TotalEnergies-led consortium initially secured a $15.4 billion financing agreement involving 30 lenders.

The British and Dutch governments withdrew in December 2025, with the consortium subsequently announcing that other partners had “unanimously agreed to provide additional equity”.

- Years of insurgency -

TotalEnergies is meanwhile facing two legal proceedings in France, including a manslaughter investigation, after survivors and relatives of victims of the 2021 attack accused it of failing to protect its subcontractors.

It is also the subject of a complaint for “complicity in war crimes” filed by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, a German NGO, with France’s national anti-terrorism prosecutor.

TotalEnergies rejects all the accusations.

While Cabo Delgado has not experienced another attack on the scale of the 2021 assault, there are regular attacks, including beheadings and kidnappings.

More than 6,400 people have been killed since the Islamic State-linked insurgency began in 2017, according to conflict tracker ACLED.

The violence has also displaced tens of thousands of people.