Nigeria’s State Oil Company and Morocco reach a gas pipeline agreement

The National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines of Morocco and the ECOWAS Commission were parties to agreements that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited signed on Thursday regarding the construction of a gas pipeline.

In a ceremony conducted at the Hotel Sofitel in the Moroccan Capital, the two nations and ECOWAS executed the Memorandum of Understanding agreement on the project, according to a statement from NNPCL.

It was stated to be a key step toward the federal government’s goal of utilizing Nigeria’s plentiful gas resources. A December 2016 agreement between the NNPC and the Moroccan Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines included a proposal for the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline (National Board of Hydrocarbons and Mines).

The NNPC was given permission by the Federal Executive Council in June to contract with ECOWAS to build the pipeline. According to the government, the 7,000 km long gas pipeline will lessen gas flaring in Nigeria, promote the diversification of the nation’s energy sources, and lessen poverty by increasing employment possibilities.

The pipeline will start in Nigeria at Brass Island and end in North Africa, where it will be connected to the already-existing Maghreb European Pipeline (MEP), which runs from Algeria via Morocco to Spain.
The project will eventually supply around three billion standard cubic feet of gas per day (3bscfd) along the West African coast from Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Gambia, Senegal, and Mauritania to Morocco.

Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPC Ltd., who spoke at the signing event, called the development a crucial turning point in the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline project since it brought together all the project’s major players and reaffirmed their commitment to seeing it through.

According to Mr. Kyari, the project will also generate income and raise the standard of living for citizens in African nations.
“Some of the benefits include wealth creation and an improvement in the level of living, integration of the economies within the region, mitigation against desertification, and other benefits,” he stated.

In addition to providing additional enablers like the necessary land for the first compressor station for the pipeline to be deployed in Nigeria, which is among the thirteen stations slated along the pipeline route, he underlined that the NNPC will support the uninterrupted delivery of gas.