Partners in the multi-billion Naira Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline are in crucial meeting to fast-track the process towards achieving the Final Investment Decision (FID) on the project.
The meeting between representatives of the Nigerian government and the Kingdom of Morocco held on Wednesday in the Moroccan capital.
Participants at the meeting included Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, and the Moroccan Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development, Leila Benali.
The meeting was anchored by the Executive Vice President, Gas, Power & New Energy of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.), Olalekan Ogunleye, and the Director General of the Morocco National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines (ONHYM), Mme Amina Benkhadra.
A statement by the NNPC Ltd at the end of the meeting said the taks focused on how to drive the partnership between the two countries to accelerate the execution of the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline Project in line with the series of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) signed between the two countries in Abuja in 2022.
The statement said both parties emphasised the strategic importance of the project to the economic well-being of the two countries and the entire African continent as well as the need to drive it to completion expeditiously in line with the objective of stemming energy poverty on the African continent.
The Cooperation Agreement for the construction of the 48 inches by 5,300 kilometres pipeline that would run from Nigeria to Dhakia (Morocco) and 1,700km from Dhakia to Northern Morocco was signed in 2017, with a capacity of 30 billion cubic meter (bcm) per year (equivalent of 3.0 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day).
The pipeline, which would traverse Republic of Benin, Togo, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania, would terminate in Morocco, with a spur to Spain.
Due to the international nature of the project, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission was saddled with the responsibility to, among other things, facilitate inter-governmental treaty and host government agreements; establishment of Pipeline Higher Authority, and alignment with African Union (AU), United Nations (UN) and other relevant international bodies.
The project, among other things, would help drive the monetisation of Nigeria’s vast gas resources, maintain NNPC Ltd.’s energy leadership in Africa, and promote economic and regional cooperation among African Countries.
