[2019-06-11] Italian group ENI plans to hire security services for Mozambique

Source: Macauhub

Italian group ENI intends to hire armed security services to protect the company and its workers in Mozambique, according to an announcement published in the local press.

“Security services should include, but not be limited to, armed personal security teams and local armed forces,” Portuguese news agency Lusa quoted the statement as saying.

The announcement said that the entity to be hired should ensure the protection of the group’s facilities both on land and at sea.

The ENI group, through its subsidiary ENI Mozambico, is the operator of the Rovuma basin project in the province of Cabo Delgado, where armed attacks have been taking place against the population and the country’s armed forces.

The notice also said that the services to be hired “will be required for a period of three years from the beginning of 2020, with the possibility of extension for an additional period of one year.”

An attack by gunmen on an open-bed van at the end of May killed 16 people, one of the bloodiest episodes since the outbreak of violence in that province in October 2017.

The Anadarko Petroleum group, which is the operator of the Area 1 block, through its subsidiary Anadarko Mozambique Area 1, Ltd, announced last May that it will resume activities in that northern province of Mozambique after its chief executive, Al Walker, received guarantees in this regard from President Filipe Nyusi.

The group decided to suspend activities last February after an armed attack occurred in the region of Palma, in Cabo Delgado province, which killed one worker and injured six others.