French oil major TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) said on Thursday it did not know about the torture and killings of civilians that were alleged to have taken place in 2021 on the site of its planned future Mozambique LNG plant, responding to a media report.
Politico said in a report earlier on Thursday that Mozambican government soldiers operating out of the site, which is still unfinished, rounded up between 180 and 250 local men, locked them in shipping containers and then tortured and killed most of them between July and September 2021.
Mozambique's defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations in the Politico report, which cited survivors and an anonymous gas plant worker. Politico said in its report that the Mozambican defense ministry and presidency did not respond to requests for comment ahead of publication.
TotalEnergies, which operates the project with a leading 26.5% interest, said in a statement: "Before it was contacted by the author of this article, TotalEnergies had never received any information regarding the alleged events described".
Consortium partners include Japan's Mitsui (20%), Mozambique's state-run ENH (15%), Thailand's PTTEP (8.5%) and Indian firms ONGC Videsh (16%), Bharat Petroleum (10%) and Oil India Ltd (4%).
"Mozambique LNG has no knowledge of the alleged events ... and has never received any information indicating that such events took place," said a statement on behalf of the consortium, provided by TotalEnergies.
TotalEnergies was leading development of the $20 billion gas export project in a bid to turn the country into a major LNG producer to rival Australia, Qatar, Russia and the United States.
In March 2021, nearby Islamist attacks prompted TotalEnergies to declare force majeure and vacate the site, named Afungi. The project has been frozen ever since.
"The last remaining Mozambique LNG personnel were evacuated on 2 April 2021, and on that date the Afungi site was handed over to the Mozambican public security forces," the consortium statement said. "No Mozambique LNG personnel returned ... until November 2021."
Politico reported that some contractors did return to the site, with some unsuccessfully trying to offer food and water to the captives.
In its statement, Mozambique LNG said it had worked through NGOs to deliver food, aid, and humanitarian support to local communities affected by the March Islamist attack throughout 2021.
It said that in more than 1,200 phone calls with local community leaders after the evacuation, "none of these calls ever mentioned the alleged events described in (the Politico) story" involving government soldiers at the gas plant.
Separately, TotalEnergies is the subject of a criminal complaint and investigation in Paris, on the grounds the French oil major failed to ensure the safety of all its subcontractors during the initial Islamist attack and evacuation. TotalEnergies has rejected these allegations as inaccurate.
Mozambique is still plagued by jihadist attacks, but in July TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said he had hoped to chart a path to restart Mozambique LNG after the country holds presidential elections in October.
