TotalEnergies, which has claimed it lost none of its workforce during the attack, denies the accusations. After suspending plant construction after the assault, the company moved to restart operations last month and hopes to start pumping gas by 2029.
Pouyanné revealed last month that his company has incurred an extra $4.5 billion in costs since 2021, a sum he wants the Mozambican government to reimburse. The project also depends on $14.9 billion in loans, some of which are uncertain.
The British state lender UK Export Finance, which pledged $1.1 billion, has yet to release the funds after it opened an investigation into the container killings this year. The Dutch government, which promised $1.2 billion in guarantees, is conducting its own inquiry. Meanwhile, U.S. environmentalists have taken the U.S. Export-Import Bank to court over its $4.7 billion loan.
Lorette Philippot, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth France, which is supporting ECCHR’s legal action, said the “seriousness of the allegations against TotalEnergies … must set a red line for the financial backers of Mozambique LNG. They did not sign blank cheques.”
The evidence in ECCHR’s complaint includes photographs of the containers and internal TotalEnergies documents, seen by POLITICO, obtained under Italian and Dutch Freedom of Information requests.
These show the company knew its Mozambican guards routinely committed human rights abuses, including killings, and it was aware of a rise in incidents in the months after the Palma attack. TotalEnergies’ security reports mention multiple abuses by soldiers stationed at its gas plant, known as the Joint Task Force, between June and September 2021. After one incident in August 2021, which is not described in detail, TotalEnergies docked the pay of all 1,000 soldiers on its site, and the Mozambican army ejected 200 soldiers from the facility.
“Despite this knowledge,” wrote the ECCHR, “TotalEnergies continued to directly support the Joint Task Force by providing accommodation, food, equipment and soldier bonuses — while stipulating that bonuses would be withdrawn if soldiers committed human rights violations.”