ADSL on its last legs in South Africa

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  By   Daniel Puchert Partially state-owned telecommunications company Telkom announced in its financial results for the year ending 31 March 2025 that its ADSL subscribers had more than halved to under 30,000. According to the company’s operational data, ADSL lines decreased from 64,959 in March 2024 to 29,770. This 54.2% decline highlights that the legacy broadband technology is slowly approaching the end of the road. Telkom’s ADSL business peaked at the end of March 2016 with 1.01 million subscribers — two years after fibre upstart Vumatel  broke ground in Parkhurst . What followed was a sharp decline in Telkom ADSL subscribers. Customers connected to its copper networks decreased by more than 500,000 over the next four years. This was partly driven by Telkom itself, which began actively switching off its copper network in some neighbourhoods. If it did not have fibre in the area, it would offer a “fixed line lookalike” wireless service that ran over its cellular ...

Total declares force majeure on Mozambique LNG project

 26 April 2021 - 08:57

BY REUTERS
Total's liquefied natural gas plant in the Afungi peninsula of Mozambique.
Total's liquefied natural gas plant in the Afungi peninsula of Mozambique.
Image: Mozambique LNG

French energy group Total said on Monday it was declaring force majeure on its Mozambique liquefied natural gas (LNG) project and withdrawing all personnel from the Afungi site.

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On March 24, insurgents attacked the coastal Mozambique town of Palma, near natural gas projects worth $60bn (about R856bn) that are meant to transform Mozambique’s economy.

“Considering the evolution of the security situation in the north of the Cabo Delgado province in Mozambique, Total confirms the withdrawal of all Mozambique LNG project personnel from the Afungi site. This situation leads Total, as operator of the Mozambique LNG project, to declare force majeure,” the company said. 

Earlier this month Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi said the government will work to restore peace in the country after last month’s militant attack near the multi-billion-dollar gas projects backed by global oil companies.

Total suspended work on the project, which is due to produce its first cargo in 2024, on March 27 after the militant attack.

The force majeure implies a weightier suspension and allows Total to cancel contractors.

Force majeure was "the only way to best protect the project interest until work can resume," a Total spokeswoman added.

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The Mozambique government is due to hold a news conference on the situation on Monday morning.

The LNG project includes development of the Golfinho and Atum natural gas fields in the Offshore Area 1 concession and the construction of a two-train liquefaction plant with capacity of 13.12 million tonnes per annum (mtpa). Total is operator of the Mozambique LNG project and obtained a $14.9 billion debt financing package in July to fund its rollout.


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