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Authorities in the UK have commissioned a human rights review into a $20bn gas development in Mozambique, as they assess whether to keep funding the project led by France’s TotalEnergies.
Four people familiar with the project said they had been approached in recent months by legal group Beyond Human Rights Compliance, saying it had been tasked by UK Export Finance, the country’s credit export agency, with carrying out an assessment of human rights allegations linked to the Mozambique LNG project.
Beyond Human Rights Compliance, led by a prominent British barrister, is assessing allegations of rights abuses by Mozambican soldiers protecting the project, the people said. One added that it was also exploring measures that have been put in place to prevent potential abuses from recurring.
The probe comes as the UK has sought legal advice on whether it can withdraw support from the project, as the Labour government seeks to move Britain away from fossil fuels towards green energy. The UK has since the original approval pledged to stop new export finance to oil and gas projects.
UKEF records disclose a payment of £35,450 to Beyond Human Rights Compliance in April for “project consultancy”, although it is not clear whether this is linked to the human rights investigation.
The UK credit export agency declined to comment on supplier contracts but said it was “in talks with project sponsors and other lenders regarding the latest status of the LNG production project in Mozambique”.
It added: “We take reports of alleged human rights infringement extremely seriously.”
Mozambique LNG was brought to an abrupt halt in 2021 when an Islamist insurgency attacked the nearby town of Palma, killing more than 800 people. TotalEnergies is now seeking to restart the project, saying that the security situation in the region has improved.
The US Export Import Bank this year unblocked almost $5bn in funding for the project, but UKEF has yet to recommit to about $1.15bn in direct loans and guarantees to banks and British companies involved in the project first agreed in 2020.
TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanné said in February that he was “ready to exercise all my contractual rights” if the UK and Dutch government, which is conducting a similar review, did not stand by their contracts. However, he told analysts two months later that financing was “back on track” after the Exim approval and that TotalEnergies could make up any shortfall with its own equity.
Mozambican soldiers protected the LNG site and the project agreed to pay bonuses to soldiers who did not commit human rights abuses. This was later criticised by a TotalEnergies-commissioned report, which said it could make Mozambique LNG “a party to the conflict”.
Mozambique’s government invited Rwandan forces in 2021 to help secure the region and the project and enable it to restart. Ensuring adequate security measures are in place is also pivotal to another ExxonMobil-led project in the region.
The four people said one focus of the UK investigation concerned allegations reported by Politico that Mozambican soldiers imprisoned local people in shipping containers, tortured and killed them on the Mozambique LNG site. TotalEnergies and Mozambique LNG have previously said they had found no evidence of the events in these reports.
Mozambique has since opened criminal proceedings to probe the allegations, while the country’s national commission of human rights is also investigating.
Beyond Human Rights Compliance and its managing partner Wayne Jordash KC, a former colleague of UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer at London chambers Doughty Street, did not respond to requests for comment. TotalEnergies declined to comment on the UK investigation.
