Good afternoon. Mozambique is in the headlines across the world, and as usual, not for reasons the government would like. After months of uncertainty, the British and Dutch governments yesterday confirmed that their export finance bodies would no longer support the financing of the $20bn-plus liquefied natural gas (LNG) project led by TotalEnergies in Cabo Delgado province. About $2.2bn of support has been withdrawn, although only $300m of that is a loan (from UK Export Finance); the rest is loan guarantees from the UK and from the Netherlands.
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Privately, TotalEnergies has been pessimistic about British and Dutch support for many months, and the firm’s chief executive Patrick Pouyanné has previously said that TotalEnergies could replace the loans they would have guaranteed by investing its own equity. There is no sign that any other export financiers will withdraw. Were the United States to withdraw its $4.5bn export finance loan, that would be disastrous for the project, but President Donald Trump’s government has already signalled its support for the project and directed the Export-Import Bank of the United States to grant the loan.
