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TotalEnergies has signed an agreement to commit $10Million more to fund employment promotion and income-generation programmes in the districts of Palma and Mocímboa da Praia, in Mozambique’s gas rich Cabo Delgado province, under a partnership with the Northern Integrated Development Agency (ADIN).

The French major’s memorandum of understanding with ADIN expands on programmes and projects that TotalEnergies and its Mozambique Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) partners established under the auspices of the Mozambique LNG Foundation with a $200Million endowment budget. That foundation was established in 2022, after an independent human rights and security review, following the Islamic insurgent attacks on Palma, the largest town in Cabo Delgado, in 2021.

TOTAL is leading the development of 13Million Tons Per Annum LNG facility in Afungi Peninsula, which sits along the coast within Palma, close to the town of Palma and the offshore Rovuma Basin. The French major is the operator of Area 1 acreage, the deepwater block from which gas molecules will be extracted to feed the liquefaction plant under construction at Afungi.

“The new funding plan aims at supporting improvement of living conditions for local communities and stimulating economic activity across both districts”, ADIN says in a statement.

The Mozambique LNG foundation has earlier reportedly created more than 8,000 local jobs and granted direct economic support to over 7,000 farmers and fishermen. The programme has funded local paving projects, a 1.7kilometer connector road in Palma, and is rolling out 28,000 solar kits alongside electric mobility solutions to empower local youth micro-entrepreneurs. It has focused heavily on the socio-economic recovery and development of local communities across the conflict-affected Cabo Delgado province, particularly the districts of Palma and Mocímboa da Praia.

ADIN says that its own new $10Million partnership programme will cover sectors including agriculture, livestock, fisheries, agro-processing, infrastructure development, biodiversity conservation, and cultural promotion, alongside measures to strengthen community resilience. Within the agricultural component, support is planned for cooperatives to boost production, improve processing, and facilitate market access, with particular focus on creating employment opportunities for young people.

The programme also envisages the construction and rehabilitation of tertiary roads, with the objective of improving population mobility and facilitating the transport and distribution of produce to local markets. Minister of Planning and Development Salim Valá said the initiative could help drive economic and social development in Cabo Delgado and unlock the region’s productive potential.

Jacinto Loureiro, ADIN Executive Commission President said the memorandum is aligned with national development policies and should contribute to the creation of new economic and employment opportunities for the populations concerned.

Tetra4, developer of the Virginia Gas Project in South Africa, has entered into an additional take-or-pay contract to supply liquified natural gas (LNG) to a domestic food processor, establishing a multi-year contracted cash flow supporting Phase 1 commercial operations, which remain targeted for completion in the third quarter (3Q) of 2026.

The LNG sale and purchase agreement, which is a five-year take-or-pay contract, is priced at greater than $16 /GJ (0.9478 MMBtu) of LNG, (~$16 per Thousand standard cubic feet (Mscf)) at current exchange rates.

Tetra 4 is a South African subsidiary of Renergen and the Virginia Gas Project  is located in the country’s Free State province.

Following the execution of this contract, Renergen has now secured take-or-pay contracts to support approximately 75% of the LNG volumes anticipated from Phase 1.

Renergen  is in discussions with multiple other potential customers and expects to complete contracting for Phase 1 volumes for both the liquid helium and LNG produced from Phase 1 during 3Q 2026.  The Company expects to complete contracting for Phase 1 during 3Q 2026 and commence contracting for a significant portion of the expected Phase 2 volumes during the second half of 2026.

“The associated LNG produced from the Virginia Gas Project is welcomed by local industrial businesses to support their energy needs”, says Paul Mann, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ASP Isotopes, the parent company of Renergen. “ We look forward to completing the construction of Phase 1 and, in addition to supplying domestic customers with LNG, starting to supply international customers with liquid helium at a point in time when geopolitical issues have greatly constricted the supply of this critical material.”

Phase 1 is expected to produce approximately 2.5MMscf/day of LNG and approximately 70 Mscf/day of liquid helium, with commercial production expected to commence during the third quarter of 2026.

Renergen founders purchased the exploration and gas rights for the 187,000-hectare area near Virginia, Welkom, and Theunissen in the Free State in 2012. The initial gas discovery occurred in 2014, when exploration campaigns first tapped into significant biogenic methane and helium reserves trapped within the deep faults of the Witwatersrand Supergroup. This led Tetra4 to secure South Africa’s first onshore petroleum production right, transforming the site into the nation’s first commercial liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquid helium plant.

Between 2019 and 2020, Tetra 4/Renergen initiated a highly successful horizontal appraisal drilling programme. On December 10, 2019, an inclined well intersected gas-charged sandstone, flowing over 850,000 standard cubic feet of gas per day to the surface.

At an assumed sale of $15–18 per Mscf for LNG and an average of $600/ Mscf for liquid helium, Renergen should be capable of generating revenues of over $27Million on an annualized basis following the expected completion of Phase 1. The Company expects to begin recognizing these revenues during the second half (2H) of 2026, ASP Isotopes says in a release.

The Company is in active discussions with additional potential customers regarding offtake of both LNG and liquid helium from both Phase 1 and Phase 2.

As the Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) vessel  Hilli Episeyo officially departs Cameroon for its 20-year charter in Argentina in July 2026, the country’s maritime LNG export operations will temporarily shut down, but  rather than shutting down the offshore wells, Perenco and the state-owned Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures (SNH) are redirecting and repurposing the gas from the Sanaga South and Ebomé fields.

Unprocessed natural gas will bypass the ocean mooring and be piped entirely to the Bipaga Gas Processing Centre on the mainland.

In the event the processing centre will increase the extraction of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG/butane), heavily targeting the state-subsidized domestic cooking gas market to reduce Cameroon’s reliance on fuel imports.

The Bipaga Gas Processing Centre came on stream in 2024,  supplying natural gas through a dedicated .27-kilometre pipeline to the Keda Cameroon Ceramics Ltd manufacturing plant. The plant consumes up to 6Million standard cubic feet per day  (MMscf/d) under a 20-year gas sales contract signed between Perenco and SNH.

The Angola LNG Limited (ALNG) plant, located in the municipality of Soyo, Zaire province, in conjunction with the maintenance campaigns of the Sanha Complex and the Sanha FPSO, in Area B of the Cabinda offshore, will carry out a Scheduled General Shutdown, within the scope of its periodic extended maintenance plan (TAR).

The shutdown is expected to last 32 days, starting Wednesday, July 8, 2026.

“The intervention is part of regular maintenance and facility integrity practices, aiming to ensure the safe continuity of ALNG’s operations, preserving equipment reliability and raising the performance and efficiency levels of the LNG plant”, the National Agency for Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG) says in a release.

“During this period, the ALNG plant will experience a complete suspension of liquefied natural gas and related derivative production, which will reduce monthly production and loading by approximately 80%. Resumption will occur in a phased and safe manner after the completion of the works.

“The impact on oil production resulting from the shutdown of the Sanha Complex and Sanha FPSO is estimated at 48,996Barrels of Oil Per Day (BOPD).

“Regarding ALNG’s contractual commitments in the international market, ALNG has been working to find appropriate solutions to ensure the timely fulfillment of its contractual obligations and, consequently, the collection of revenue for the Angolan State”, the regulator explains.

“The National Concessionaire will continue to work to ensure that activities are carried out with technical rigour and in strict compliance with safety, health, environmental and operational integrity standards”.

Global demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is expected to increase to nearly 700Million tonnes a year (700MMTPA) by 2050, an increase of around 65% from 2025 levels, according to Shell’s LNG Outlook 2026.

These numbers are based on expectations that “countries continue to prioritise flexible and reliable energy security offered by gas and LNG”, the outlook, in its 10^th year, notes.

A total of 422Million tonnes of LNG were traded in 2025 and this was expected to increase significantly in 2026. However, severe disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has shut in around one fifth of the world’s monthly LNG supply since the conflict started, pushing up prices on the spot market and adversely affecting some countries in Asia.

“With long-term supply agreements accounting for around two thirds of total LNG trade, the average price that buyers paid for LNG in May was around $11-12 per MMBtu, compared to $7-11 in January before the conflict began”.

“The ramp up of new liquefaction facilities in North America, improved performance at existing plants and slower Asian imports of LNG have partially offset the impact of reduced supply from the Middle East”, the outlook explains. As a result, total LNG trade in 2026 could be similar to last year if shipping through the Strait of Hormuz returns to normal this summer, before returning to growth in 2027.

“The conflict created a system-wide shock with disruption cascading across all segments of the economy, but the LNG industry has proved resilient and able to adapt to changing market conditions,” said Cederic Cremers, President of Integrated Gas at Shell. “While more investment in both supply and demand infrastructure is needed, the long-term outlook remains strong and LNG will continue to be a stabilising force in the global energy system.”

ABOUT 180MILLION TONNES OF ANNUAL NEW SUPPLY is forecast in the outlook to enter the market by 2030, improving the availability and affordability of gas and opening up demand in new markets.

However, the ability to benefit from new supply will depend on the availability of infrastructure in importing countries, including regasification capacity and pipeline connectivity, especially in South and Southeast Asia.

Forecasts show that those regions will account for around 40% of global LNG imports by 2050 to meet rapidly growing demand for energy with lower emissions than coal. In more mature Asian markets such as Japan, data centres are emerging as a new source of power demand.

The report declares that emerging segments of demand are also growing rapidly. “According to forecasts, LNG bunkering will grow seven-fold to 27Million tonnes by 2035, more than the amount of LNG imported by India in 2025.

“LNG will continue to have a vital role to deliver energy security to Europe, to balance intermittent renewables as domestic gas production declines”, the report contends. “To meet the growing demand, significant additional investment will be needed in new LNG liquefaction plants through the 2030s and 2040s, with around 200Mllion tonnes a year of new supply needed, in addition to projects already under construction”.

A more resilient market-Although spot prices of LNG in Asia increased to more than $20 per Million British thermal units (MMBtu) at the peak of the Middle East crisis, they remained significantly lower than in 2022 when gas supplies were disrupted following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, reflecting the greater resilience of the LNG market now.

“With long-term supply agreements accounting for around two thirds of total LNG trade, the average price that buyers paid for LNG in May was around $11-12 per MMBtu, compared to $7-11 in January before the conflict began”.