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Africa’s Biggest Investment Takes Shape Under Islamist Threat – Yahoo Canada Finance

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(Bloomberg) — Dozens of soldiers clutching AK-47s and grenade launchers watch over roaring bulldozers on the white sand beach that meets a tropical turquoise sea. They’re guarding Africa’s biggest investment: a $23 billion project to export Mozambique’s natural gas from an area increasingly besieged by an Islamist insurgency.

Companies led by Total SA will pump the gas from wells about 40 kilometers (25 miles) offshore, cool it to temperatures below minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit so that it turns to liquid, then ship it to electricity plants from France to China. The consortium is about to finalize almost $16 billion in project financing — another record for the continent.

“The work is immense,” said Ronan Bescond, the 44-year-old French chemical engineer who Total chose to lead the project after a career of nearly two decades at the company. “The first cargo of LNG must be in 2024. And we are on the right track,” he said to a handful of reporters in a prefabricated room at the site 32 kilometers south of the Rovuma River that marks the border with Tanzania.

The obstacles facing a project that’s expected to transform the impoverished southeast African nation are huge.

To achieve the target of first production for an undertaking worth billions of dollars more than Mozambique’s entire economy, developers need to move thousands of tons of equipment through territory thick with Islamic State-aligned insurgents. At one stage, a Covid-19 outbreak saw the Total site accounting for three in four of the country’s confirmed infections. All this as natural-gas prices plunged to near 25-year lows.

Militants who first pledged allegiance to IS in 2018 have carried out increasingly brazen attacks this year.

Deadly Raid

Last week, they raided Mocimboa da Praia for a third time, and occupied the town for as long as three days. It’s a crucial supply hub just 60 kilometers south of the project site and the closest port.

As many as nine workers for Total subcontractors Fenix Construction Services Lda died in the attack, Jasmine Opperman, an African analyst at Wisconsin-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, said in a Twitter post. The company didn’t answer seven calls and two emails seeking comment.

Before the gas discoveries and insurgency, the remote coastline was more famous for luxury tropical island resorts. Last month, one of the nearby hotels offered a discount price of $19,820 a night to hire out an island as a refuge from the coronavirus.

The private military company that Mozambique hired in April to provide air support to government troops in the form of helicopters fitted with machine guns has struggled to quell the violence. Lionel Dyck, the founder of Dyck Advisory Group, the firm the government employed, declined to comment when contacted by mobile phone.

IS Warning

Governments including South Africa, the U.S. and Portugal have indicated willingness to help fight the insurgency.

“The insurgency is a challenge but we’re happy that our defense and security forces have been playing their role,” Max Tonela, Mozambique’s energy and natural resources minister, told reporters during the June 19 site visit. “We all as Mozambicans must fight against this evil that comes from external attacks.”

About 1,300 people have died in the violence, with a further 220,000 displaced since the first attack three years ago, which also took place at Mocimboa da Praia.

For the second time, IS referred directly to the projects in a weekly newsletter this month. The group said that it would be “delusional” to think that the government could protect the investments, and warned other countries against getting involved.

The marginalization of young men in a region that’s predominantly Muslim and 1,900 kilometers away from the capital, Maputo, has helped lead to radicalization that’s fueled the insurgency, according to researchers including Saide Habibe at the Maputo-based Institute of Social and Economic Studies who have studied the origins of the fighters.

Total’s project will hire 14,000 people at peak construction, of which at least 5,000 will be Mozambican and many from the region, Bescond said at the briefing, wearing a surgical mask, as all visitors to the site must do to prevent another outbreak of the coronavirus.

The financial rewards are worth the cost to the government of the soldiers patrolling the vast compound and snipers on its perimeter fence — Total’s estimate is $50 billion in direct and indirect revenue over 25 years for the $15 billion economy.

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S&P/TSX composite up more than 100 points, U.S. stock markets mixed

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TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 100 points in late-morning trading, helped by strength in base metal and utility stocks, while U.S. stock markets were mixed.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 103.40 points at 24,542.48.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 192.31 points at 42,932.73. The S&P 500 index was up 7.14 points at 5,822.40, while the Nasdaq composite was down 9.03 points at 18,306.56.

The Canadian dollar traded for 72.61 cents US compared with 72.44 cents US on Tuesday.

The November crude oil contract was down 71 cents at US$69.87 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was down eight cents at US$2.42 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was up US$7.20 at US$2,686.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was up a penny at US$4.35 a pound.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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S&P/TSX up more than 200 points, U.S. markets also higher

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TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 200 points in late-morning trading, while U.S. stock markets were also headed higher.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 205.86 points at 24,508.12.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 336.62 points at 42,790.74. The S&P 500 index was up 34.19 points at 5,814.24, while the Nasdaq composite was up 60.27 points at 18.342.32.

The Canadian dollar traded for 72.61 cents US compared with 72.71 cents US on Thursday.

The November crude oil contract was down 15 cents at US$75.70 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was down two cents at US$2.65 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was down US$29.60 at US$2,668.90 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents at US$4.47 a pound.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 11, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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S&P/TSX composite little changed in late-morning trading, U.S. stock markets down

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TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was little changed in late-morning trading as the financial sector fell, but energy and base metal stocks moved higher.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 0.05 of a point at 24,224.95.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 94.31 points at 42,417.69. The S&P 500 index was down 10.91 points at 5,781.13, while the Nasdaq composite was down 29.59 points at 18,262.03.

The Canadian dollar traded for 72.71 cents US compared with 73.05 cents US on Wednesday.

The November crude oil contract was up US$1.69 at US$74.93 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was up a penny at US$2.67 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was up US$14.70 at US$2,640.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up two cents at US$4.42 a pound.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 10, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

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