Nigeria-Morocco Pipeline Investment Decision Postponed to Early 2025

(Reuters) — A final investment decision (FID) on the Nigeria-Morocco natural gas pipeline is expected in early 2025, according to the head of Morocco's national hydrocarbon agency.

FID had previously been targeted for December 2024.

Key Quotes

"We are preparing ourselves for FID in the beginning of 2025," said Amina Benkhadra, general director of ONHYM, at the Invest in Africa Energy conference in Paris on Tuesday.

"We have also secured one of the largest aggregators in Europe who will buy all the gas that will be exported through the Maghreb-Europe pipeline, once connected to this pipeline," she added.

"There is a call for all kinds of investors - foreign sovereign funds, IOCs, multilateral banks and it will be done in a special public private partnership... We have right now all the specific technical and financial parameters that show the competitivity of this way of transport when we compare it to (liquefied natural gas)" transported by ship, Benkhadra said.

Why It's Important

The European Union is seeking alternative gas suppliers as it aims to stop Russian imports by 2027 in response to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Nigeria holds some of the world's largest known gas reserves but has struggled to attract investment into the sector.

A project to export Nigerian gas toward Europe via a pipeline across the Sahara Desert was thrown into uncertainty following last year's military coup in neighboring Niger.

Nigeria is now hoping to fast-track an alternate offshore pipeline that would reach Spain via Morocco, passing through the Atlantic waters of 13 West African countries that will also be able to send and receive gas through the line.

The project, also called the Atlantic African Gas Pipeline, will cost $25 billion and have a capacity of 30 billion cubic meters per year, to be completed over 25 years in phases as it links up to existing infrastructure.

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