“Advance quickly?” I’ve heard that line before. When I first entered the energy sector, I was promptly thrown into the Iran LNG project. Naturally, I dug into the project’s history—only to discover that Iran had been fantasizing about LNG exports since the 1970s. Half a century of plans, announcements, and grandstanding, with precisely zero to show for it. It looked like an outlier at the time. LNG projects don’t usually stretch across multiple decades like undead bureaucratic relics.
Sure, there are other cases. But none quite so spectacular as Mozambique.
Mozambique LNG has been “on the verge” for roughly twenty years. Two decades of glossy presentations, triumphant press releases, and promises that a final investment decision was just a few months away. They swore it would be greenlit instantly, built in record time, and deliver gas to the world before anyone could blink.
None of it happened.
This is not the most forgiving slice of the planet—geologically, politically, or economically. Add in technical complexity, supply chain choke points, and the sort of security risks that don’t make it into PowerPoints, and suddenly “advancing quickly” begins to look like a cosmic joke.
Maybe it’s all simply too much. Maybe the world, despite endless rhetoric about energy diversification, doesn’t actually want to commit. Or maybe—just maybe—there really is an Africa factor at play, a subtle but persistent gravitational pull that drags ambitious megaprojects into ambiguity, delay, and perpetual question marks.Whatever the reason, one thing is certain: LNG dreams don’t die easily. They just linger for decades, waiting for reality to finally finish them off.