by SOPHIE NEIMAN
Big international players are moving in to exploit Mozambique’s vast natural gas resources – but to whose benefit?
Mozambique, among the poorest of countries, sits atop the world’s ninth-largest natural gas reserves. Discovered nearly a decade ago off the coast of the northern province of Cabo Delgado, these reserves have been a honeypot, attracting foreign companies and investors, and hold the tantalizing possibility of generating enough income to push the southern African nation into the ranks of the middle-income countries.
But there’s a big catch. Environmental campaigners say gas development will do more harm than good, contributing to climate change and uprooting villagers in an area beset by under-reported violent conflict due to Islamist militancy. As extraction projects accelerate in Mozambique, questions about who actually profits from resource wealth also intensify.
This summer, the French energy giant Total reached its final investment decision for the $20 billion Mozambique Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) project, which will encompass both offshore drilling and onshore construction projects. The deal is the largest of its kind in Africa to date, with the money involved topping Mozambique’s annual GDP. And it’s just one of three gas projects in Cabo Delgado.
‘The local population sees that massive amounts of money are being invested in their region, [but] they are only suffering from it and not gaining any advantage,’ said Cécile Marchand, a campaigner with Friends of the Earth in France. The government has gone absolutely out of its way to prevent foreign journalists, but also domestic journalists, from having access to the conflict
Death by a thousand paper cuts
Some 550 families have already been forced to leave their homes to make way for Total’s construction operations. The company compensated and relocated displaced communities, but fisherfolk who depend on the sea have been moved as far as 15 kilometres from the water. And farmers who have cultivated crops all their lives have been given smaller plots of land.
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