TotalEnergies' creditors maintain reservations about the urgency of disbursing the amount agreed in the Final Investment Decision (FID) for the implementation of the project in Area 1 of the Rovuma basin, in Cabo Delgado province, according to the Center for Democracy and Development (CDD).

"The creditors have also adopted a more cautious stance. In other words, the owners of the money are in no 'hurry' to disburse the financing that supports the DFI reached in June 2019," writes CDD.

In fact, the main creditor of TotalEnergies' project in the Rovuma Basin, the United States Export-Import Bank (US EXIM), has still not disbursed the agreed amount, 3.7 billion dollars.

"The US state bank entered the Rovuma basin gas business in September 2019 when it authorized direct financing of up to five billion dollars to support the export of engineering goods and services, procurement from the US for the development and construction of the project in Area 1," says CDD.

In fact, the source recalls that the CEO of the French oil company, Patrick Pouyanné, said that "there is no hurry" to resume the project. In order for the "force majeure" to be lifted, TotalEnergies is demanding the return of state officials to the neighboring towns of Palma and Mocímboa da Praia; maintenance of the cost of the project "as it was before"; better security conditions; and a positive assessment of humanitarian conditions in Cabo Delgado.

This last requirement was confirmed by the oil company's independent report commissioned from independent auditor Jean-Christophe Rufin. The document was shared on Tuesday (23) by the oil company.

The day before the document was released, the CDD warned of a redoubled exercise by TotalEnergies given the current security conditions in Cabo Delgado. "Resuming the project at an inopportune moment could imply serious reputational and economic costs for the creditors, insofar as their resources would be associated with investments in contexts of insecurity and human rights violations, "pinching" their good image in the international market," it reads.

Nevertheless, the positive assessment of the French auditor and diplomat, as well as the government's repeated speeches about relative security in Cabo Delgado and successive calls for the project to be resumed, run notíinformation on terrorist attacks in the region.