Maputo, Feb. 23, 2026 (Lusa) - Oil companies TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil plan to move 400 natural gas ships annually in the Afungi peninsula, Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, and are moving forward with a joint tender to hire seven support boats and tugboats.
According to the tender to which Lusa had access today, this is an expression of interest in providing maritime services for Area 1 (Mozambique LNG), led by TotalEnergies, and Area 4 (Rovuma LNG), led by ExxonMobil, the latter still awaiting a final investment decision, despite already moving forward with this joint procedure.
In this tender, the two concessionaires state that they are seeking "safe, efficient and reliable transport, loading and unloading services" for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) "from production sites to global markets".
These services include, in addition to human resources, five tugboats with 80 tonnes of static traction, a pilot boat and two work boats, with the tender already forecasting the movement of 160 LNG tankers and ten condensate tankers annually for Area 1, and 220 LNG tankers and 15 condensate tankers to Area 4.
On 29 January, the Mozambican President announced that construction of the Rovuma LNG natural gas megaproject in Cabo Delgado, led by US oil company ExxonMobil, would begin in about a year.
"Our government, in collaboration with the concessionaires, has been taking measures to ensure the sustainability of security measures in Cabo Delgado province and in the country in general. We therefore reaffirm our commitment (...) to ensure that, in the near future, within the next 12 to 18 months, we will return to this location to witness the start of construction of Rovuma LNG," said Daniel Chapo.
The position was taken in Afungi, Cabo Delgado, precisely at the official resumption of another of the LNG megaprojects, worth $20 billion (€16.9 million) led by TotalEnergies, almost five years after the “force majeure” clause was triggered due to attacks by extremists, lifted in October by the Rovuma Basin Area 01 consortium.
ExxonMobil announced on 20 November that it had lifted the “force majeure” declaration for the natural gas megaproject in Cabo Delgado, an essential step towards the Final Investment Decision (FID), scheduled for 2026.
The decision was confirmed by an official source at the oil company, which suspended the Rovuma LNG gas project, one of the largest in Africa, valued at $30 billion (€25.4 billion), following the attacks in 2021.
"We have lifted the force majeure declaration for the Rovuma LNG project," said an ExxonMobil spokesperson, recalling that it is associated with TotalEnergies' megaproject in the same area, with planned infrastructure sharing in Afungi, Palma district.
The Mozambican President said on 12 November last year that ExxonMobil should move forward with the FID before July 2026: "In our talks in Houston [USA, on 29 October] with ExxonMobil, it became clear that once Total's project [which provides for infrastructure sharing] is resumed, they will also start working with us so that by the middle of next year [2026], later July/July, there can be an investment decision from Exxon."
ExxonMobil plans to produce 18 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG in Area 4, the largest planned in Africa.
The Area 1 project, led by TotalEnergies and being resumed, plans to deliver LNG in 2029 and has a capacity of 13 mtpa.
Currently, in the same basin, the consortium led by Eni already produces, through the Coral South floating platform, about seven mtpa, which started in 2022, and in October signed the FID for the second platform of its kind, Coral Norte, which will double LNG production from 2028, an investment of $7.2 billion (€6.1 billion).
PVJ/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
