By Joshua Kirby
France's TotalEnergies said partners in its Mozambique liquefied natural-gas project agreed to provide additional equity after the British and Dutch governments withdrew financing from the much-delayed project amid security concerns.
Britain's business minister, Peter Kyle, on Monday told parliament that the government had decided to end U.K. Export Finance's participation in the Mozambique project, which was paused in 2021 as a result of a flare-up in violence in the country.
"My officials have evaluated the risks around the project, and it is the view of His Majesty's Government that these risks have increased since 2020," Kyle said, referring to the year in which the agency first committed support to the project.
Dutch export-finance agency Atradius has made a similar decision, TotalEnergies said. Atradius didn't immediately respond to a request for confirmation.
Participating partners in the project---who include the Mozambique government and Indian, Thai and Japanese corporations--have agreed to add additional equity to cover the roughly 10% of the project's external financing, TotalEnergies said. The energy giant holds a stake of a little more than a quarter in the project.
The move by the British and Dutch authorities to pull out of the project comes after repeated media reports of alleged human-rights abuses on the part of the security forces of the southern African nation. TotalEnergies last month hit back against claims it was complicit in abuses by the security services.
"All internal verifications conducted with our stakeholders confirm that neither Mozambique LNG nor, a fortiori, TotalEnergies had received at the time any information suggesting that such acts had been committed," the company said at the time.
Write to Joshua Kirby at joshua.kirby@wsj.com; @joshualeokirby
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
12-02-25 0834ET
