Mozambican lawyers set to sue Texas-based Anadarko over land deal

A group of lawyers in Mozambique has contemplated to sue the US fossil fuel giant Anadarko to antagonize its planned $20 billion gas project. The lawyers have their argument that the land was illegally taken from the local residents.

"As part of a legal monitoring project on land rights... we requested the Administrative Court annul the right to use land on an area of 6,475 hectares," the Mozambique Bar Association said in a statement posted on its website.

Anadarko is an American petroleum and natural gas exploration and production company headquartered in Texas' The Woodlands. It is a renowned global organization investing billions of dollars to exploit major gas reserves discovered off Mozambique's north-eastern coast. The lawsuit is likely to delay further operations.

The company earlier said that Mozambique's natural gas reserves, of which it has discovered 75 trillion cubic feet so far, are among the best and largest over the planet, as reported by Economic Times. However, due to several deadly Islamists attacks in the Cabo Delgado province in the previous year, the oil and gas developmental process has highly declined.

"The process of awarding the right to use the land did not respect the principle of public consultation," the association said in a statement.