During a bilateral meeting between the president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, and Mohammed VI, King of Morocco, the two countries have signed a 5,660km gas pipeline agreement to pump gas from Nigeria to Morocco, crossing several African nations
The gas pipeline project, agreed in December 2016, will be built in phases for a period of 25 years, and is set to fulfil the growing needs of the transit countries as well as Europe.
Morocco and Nigeria agreed to launch a front-end engineering design (FEED) to involve transit countries in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), aiming to enhance regional economic activities and helping West African nations meet the increasing energy needs.
According to the industry experts, the new gas pipeline is expected to reduce Africa’s gas flaring and encourage energy diversity in the region, thus significantly contributing to more job opportunities that will boost economic development.
The pipeline project is in line with both the countries’ growing activities in oil and gas sector. Recently, Morocco has shown growing momentum in gas drilling activities, with SDX Energy making a conventional natural gas discovery at the LMS-1 exploration well on the Lalla Mimouna permit in Morocco. Nigeria, sequentially, is also taking several steps to speed up oil and gas exploration and production in the country, as well as developing its midstream and downstream sectors.
Apart from the gas pipeline project, Morocco and Nigeria also signed agreements to develop a fertiliser plant in Nigeria and provide vocational training for agricultural development.
