US Export-Import Bank Hopes to Finance US$5 B Mozambique LNG project

(AllAfrica, Maputo, 25 August 2019) The Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM US) has voted to notify the US Congress of its consideration of a five billion dollar loan to support the export of US goods and services for the development of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) project on the Afungi Peninsula, in Palma district, in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado. EXIM US estimates that the US$5 B loan "could support an estimated 16,400 American jobs over the five-year construction period. Through follow-on sales, thousands of additional jobs may be generated across the United States" and "through fees and interest earned, the transaction also could create more than 600 million dollars in revenue for U.S. taxpayers". The borrower would be the Mozambique LNG1 Financing Company, whose owners include the Anadarko Petroleum Company, which heads the consortium developing Area One of the Rovuma Basin, including the construction of the gas liquefaction factories on the Afungi Peninsula. Anadarko was recently purchased by another US company, the Occidental Petroleum Corporation. A 2016 Friends of the Earth report (pdf) noted that: "With their farmland and fishing grounds being taken by multinational corporations, entire communities will lose their homes, land, and livelihoods. Locals will receive very few jobs, and an influx of workers from other countries and other parts of Mozambique will likely bring an increase in diseases, including sexually transmitted infections, and place a strain on already limited health-care and education resources. Friends of the Earth further notes that “By approving $5 billion in fossil fuel financing, EXIM is accelerating the climate crisis while causing local environmental damage and propelling human rights violations in Mozambique,”