Saipem has agreed to restart a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Mozambique for TotalEnergies in July, the Italian energy services group's chief executive said Tuesday.
The project, which would be the first development of an LNG plant in the African country, has been frozen until 2021 due to safety concerns. The contract is worth 3.5 billion euros ($3.72 billion) to the Italian group.
"We plan to gradually restart the project, according to the information received by our customers, from July this year," said Saipem CEO Alessandro Puliti on a call about the group's results for 2022.
Puliti stated that Saipem had no direct information on the human rights and security situation in the Cabo Delgato province where the project will be located.
Earlier this month, TotalEnergies commissioned Jean-Christophe Rufin, an expert in humanitarian action and human rights, to carry out an independent mission to assess the humanitarian situation in the province before deciding whether to restart operations.
"We have no direct visibility on the human rights report, but we have agreed with Total to restart in July (...) this implies that our client is confident of resolving potential outstanding issues by that date," said Puliti.
On Tuesday, Total told Reuters that it would wait for a human rights assessment commissioned by Rufin before announcing any restart of the project.
The French company added that it did not yet have a date for receipt of the report, after an initial estimate at the end of February.
Lorette Philippot, an activist with Friends of the Earth France, said it was not possible for the project's negative consequences for the climate and people to be resolved by the summer.
"The situation on the ground is critical: the gas industry has been at the heart of the brutal conflict that has created 1 million internal refugees," said Philippot.
