https://pemba.org Pemba.org en https://pemba.org/rovuma-lng-coral-north-cabo-delgado-gas/ Mozambique sits on some of the largest gas discoveries made anywhere this century. Between 2010 and 2013, drilling in the Rovuma Basin off Cabo Delgado found well over 100 trillion cubic feet of gas in two blocks, Area 1 and Area 4. More than a decade later, one project is producing, one is under construction and one is still waiting for its final investment decision. Together they decide whether Cabo Delgado, and Pemba with it, becomes a gas economy. LNG ExxonMobil Eni Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/rovuma-lng-coral-north-cabo-delgado-gas/ https://pemba.org/is-pemba-safe-travel-advice/ Pemba is the capital of a province at war, and it is also a functioning port city where oil and gas contractors, aid workers, officials and a few tourists come and go every day. Both things are true. The question for anyone planning a trip is where the line between them runs, and that line has moved several times since 2017. security travel Thu, 22 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/is-pemba-safe-travel-advice/ https://pemba.org/mozambique-lng-restart-pemba/ On 29 January 2026 TotalEnergies' chief executive, Patrick Pouyanné, stood with Mozambique's president, Daniel Chapo, at the Afungi construction site in the far north of Cabo Delgado and announced that Mozambique LNG was fully back in business. The 20-billion-dollar project had been frozen since 2021, when insurgents overran the nearby town of Palma. Now about 4,000 workers were back on site, more than 3,000 of them Mozambican, and the target for the first cargo was 2029. LNG TotalEnergies business Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/mozambique-lng-restart-pemba/ https://pemba.org/pemba-mozambique-city-guide/ Pemba was a quiet place for most of its life. A colonial port and provincial capital on a vast natural bay, it was far enough from the wars of the 20th century to come through them largely untouched. It had a cathedral, a small port, a beach strip at Wimbe and a modest name among regional holidaymakers as the gateway to the Quirimbas islands. Then, within a few years, it became three things at once: the staging town for one of Africa's largest gas investments, the refuge for hundreds of… history business security Tue, 20 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/pemba-mozambique-city-guide/ https://pemba.org/pemba-flying-fox-ngezi-forest/ In 1989 you could count the Pemba flying fox on Pemba Island by the handful. The big fruit bat, with a wingspan of well over a metre and a fox-like face, lives nowhere else on earth, and by the early 1990s it was close to gone. People hunted it for food, and most of the island's forest had been cleared for cloves, rice and firewood. Scientists listed it as critically endangered. Pemba Island Zanzibar heritage travel Mon, 19 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/pemba-flying-fox-ngezi-forest/ https://pemba.org/cabo-delgado-humanitarian-crisis-2026/ In June 2026 more than 12,000 people in Cabo Delgado were forced from their homes, according to the UN's humanitarian office, OCHA. Over the first six months of the year the number passed 26,000, and 80 percent of them were women and children. The province where TotalEnergies restarted a 20-billion-dollar gas project in January (the restart) is also among Mozambique's poorest provinces, and its aid operation is running out of money. security politics Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/cabo-delgado-humanitarian-crisis-2026/ https://pemba.org/palma-afungi-peninsula-lng/ Palma sits at the far northern tip of Mozambique, a few kilometres from the Rovuma River and the Tanzanian border. Most of the money in Cabo Delgado is going there. About 10 kilometres south of the town, on the Afungi peninsula, TotalEnergies is building Mozambique LNG, the 20-billion-dollar onshore plant it restarted in January 2026 after a five-year freeze (the restart). If ExxonMobil goes ahead with Rovuma LNG, its plant will be built next to it (the gas projects). LNG security TotalEnergies Rwanda Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/palma-afungi-peninsula-lng/ https://pemba.org/montepuez-rubies-gemfields/ Between 22 and 29 June 2026 Gemfields held its first "Trade Select" auction of rough rubies from Montepuez, in Cabo Delgado's interior west of Pemba. Buyers took 82 of the 89 lots, 348,409 carats in all, for 23.1 million dollars, an average of 66.30 dollars a carat. An earlier Montepuez ruby auction, in February, had brought in about 53 million. Few people outside the gem trade know the name, but Montepuez is one of the most important sources of rubies in the world, and the rubies are one of… business security politics Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/montepuez-rubies-gemfields/ https://pemba.org/cabo-delgado-insurgency-explained/ In the early hours of 5 October 2017, about thirty armed men attacked three police stations in Mocímboa da Praia, a port town in the north of Cabo Delgado. It looked like a local outbreak. Nine years later the war it started has killed more than 6,600 people, at least 2,700 of them civilians, according to the conflict monitor ACLED, and at its peak drove close to a million people from their homes. It shut down Africa's largest private investment for more than four years. Pemba, the provincial… security Rwanda politics Thu, 15 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/cabo-delgado-insurgency-explained/ https://pemba.org/pemba-airports-upgrades-mozambique-zanzibar/ There are two Pemba airports, about 850 kilometres apart on the same coast, and both are too small for what is now being asked of them. Pemba, Mozambique, code POL, is the front door of a gas province that TotalEnergies reopened in January 2026. Pemba Island, Zanzibar, code PMA, is a clove island whose government wants it to catch up with Zanzibar's tourist boom. Each has a rebuilding plan, and in each the money and the timetable are the open questions. logistics LNG Pemba Island Zanzibar travel Wed, 14 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/pemba-airports-upgrades-mozambique-zanzibar/ https://pemba.org/mozambique-sovereign-wealth-fund-gas-revenue/ At the end of June 2026 Mozambique's new sovereign wealth fund was worth 118.36 million dollars. Of that, 116.13 million was gas revenue paid in by the government and 2.22 million was what the fund had earned on it. In the second quarter it made a 0.41 percent return, mostly interest on bank deposits and government bonds. By the standards of Norway or Abu Dhabi it is a rounding error. By Mozambique's standards it is something new: a pot of public money from natural resources, held offshore… LNG business politics Tue, 13 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/mozambique-sovereign-wealth-fund-gas-revenue/ https://pemba.org/pemba-island-zanzibar-elections-opposition/ On 18 September 2026 Othman Masoud Othman of the opposition party ACT-Wazalendo became Zanzibar's First Vice-President again, nearly a year after an election his party said was stolen. His return restored the islands' Government of National Unity, the power-sharing arrangement written into Zanzibar's constitution to keep its two halves from tearing apart. The half that most needed persuading was Pemba. politics Pemba Island Zanzibar Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/pemba-island-zanzibar-elections-opposition/ https://pemba.org/mozambique-gas-revenue-forecast-2027-2029/ Mozambique hosts some of the largest gas projects in Africa, worth around 50 billion dollars between them. Its government expects to earn 80.1 million dollars from gas in 2027. That figure comes from the Medium-Term Fiscal Framework for 2027 to 2029, approved by the Council of Ministers in August 2026 and reported by Lusa. It falls slightly, to 78.4 million, in 2028, and rises to 101 million in 2029. LNG politics business ExxonMobil Eni TotalEnergies Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/mozambique-gas-revenue-forecast-2027-2029/ https://pemba.org/balama-graphite-mine-cabo-delgado/ About 250 kilometres inland from Pemba, near the town of Balama, an Australian company mines what it calls the largest high-quality graphite resource outside China. Graphite is the main material in the anodes of lithium-ion batteries, and China controls most of the world's supply and almost all of its processing. Since Beijing began restricting graphite exports in December 2023, Balama has become one of the few places Western carmakers and governments can point to as an alternative. It sits in… business logistics politics Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/balama-graphite-mine-cabo-delgado/ https://pemba.org/pemba-island-tanzania-guide/ There is a second Pemba, and for many people searching the name, it's the one they mean. Pemba Island lies about 50 kilometres north of Unguja, the main island of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania. Arab sailors called it al-Jazira al-Khadra, the Green Island, and it still is: hilly, wet and covered in clove trees, mango and coconut palms, with mangroves along a ragged coastline. About 543,000 people lived there at the 2022 census, on an island of 988 square kilometres. Pemba Island Zanzibar travel politics Fri, 09 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/pemba-island-tanzania-guide/ https://pemba.org/getting-to-pemba-flights-roads/ For most people, Pemba is reached by air, and in the current war that's the only sensible way. Pemba Airport, code POL, a few kilometres from the city centre, is the province's main airport and the entry point for most of the oil and gas workforce, aid staff and officials who come to Cabo Delgado. The roads are a different matter. travel logistics security Thu, 08 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/getting-to-pemba-flights-roads/ https://pemba.org/mocimboa-da-praia-2026/ Mocímboa da Praia is where Cabo Delgado's war started, on 5 October 2017, with a pre-dawn attack on the town's police stations (the insurgency explained). It is also the place that best shows where the war stands now. The town is back in government hands, tens of thousands of people have returned, and work began years ago to reopen its port. Yet in 2026 the insurgents attack the district almost every week, and their boats work the coast outside the harbour. security Rwanda logistics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/mocimboa-da-praia-2026/ https://pemba.org/port-of-pemba-logistics-base/ Pemba Bay is one of the great natural harbours of the Indian Ocean coast: a deep, sheltered bay several kilometres across, opening to the sea through a relatively narrow mouth. The Portuguese built a town on its southern shore in the early 20th century for exactly that reason. A century on, the bay is the main reason Pemba matters to the gas industry, and the port is where Cabo Delgado's boom either works or jams. logistics LNG business Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/port-of-pemba-logistics-base/ https://pemba.org/mozambique-lng-local-suppliers-pemba/ On 10 March 2026, about a month after TotalEnergies restarted its gas project, a hall in Pemba filled with local business owners. The company had come to tell them what it would be buying over the next three to nine months and how to bid for it. Cabo Delgado's governor, Valige Tauabo, said the meeting answered one of the business community's main complaints: nobody told them what was coming. Three months later, Mozambique gave those businesses a legal claim to part of the work. business LNG TotalEnergies Mon, 05 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/mozambique-lng-local-suppliers-pemba/ https://pemba.org/pemba-island-cloves/ In the year to September 2025, Zanzibar earned 6.3 million dollars from clove exports, according to the Bank of Tanzania. The year before it had earned 26.3 million. A 76 percent fall in twelve months would hurt any economy. For Pemba Island, which grows most of Zanzibar's cloves, it hit the one crop that has shaped the island's economy, politics and grievances for two centuries. Pemba Island Zanzibar history business Sun, 04 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/pemba-island-cloves/ https://pemba.org/pemba-neighbourhoods-guide/ Pemba is spread along the southern shore of its bay, and its neighbourhoods tell the story of the city in order: the colonial port, the modern administrative centre, the fishing quarter that became a landing beach for refugees, the resort strip that now houses gas contractors, and the camps where families displaced by the war have lived for years. travel history security Sat, 03 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/pemba-neighbourhoods-guide/ https://pemba.org/quirimbas-archipelago-ibo-island/ North of Pemba, a chain of about 32 coral islands runs up the coast of Cabo Delgado towards the Tanzanian border. These are the Quirimbas: mangrove channels, reefs, sandbanks and old trading towns, settled by Swahili merchants for centuries before the Portuguese arrived. In better times they were the reason most tourists came to Pemba at all. Since 2017 they have also been a front line. Quirimbas heritage security Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/quirimbas-archipelago-ibo-island/ https://pemba.org/pemba-hotels-restaurants-wimbe-beach/ Pemba's hotel market runs on the gas industry and the aid agencies, not on tourists. When TotalEnergies froze its project in 2021, business slumped. Since the full restart in January 2026 (the restart), occupancy has followed the construction schedule: crew changes, supplier visits and workshops fill the better hotels, and rates are set with corporate budgets in mind. If you're coming on business, book early and get a corporate rate through your company or the project you're working for. hotels and food travel business Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://pemba.org/pemba-hotels-restaurants-wimbe-beach/