Nigeria, Morocco Creates Joint Venture Firm To Manage $25bn Gas Pipeline

Nigeria and Morocco have agreed to unveil a joint venture to manage a long-planned $25 billion pipeline which will ship gas to Europe, a Moroccan minister has said.

Morocco’s minister of energy transition and sustainable development, Leila Benali, told Morocco’s parliament that a floating gas storage terminal would also be installed at Nador on the Mediterranean for the mega project.

Benali said, “the project has made considerable progress” and entered the execution stage. She added that feasibility and engineering studies have also been completed, according to Arabian Gulf Business Insight (AGBI).

In her comments, published on Facebook and in Morocco’s press this week, Benali said the path for the 5,300km pipeline has been determined and that bids would be invited shortly for constructing a floating storage regasification unit in the port of Nador in northern Morocco.

The pipeline project, part of an agreement signed by Morocco and Nigeria in 2017, will transport nearly 30 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year to Morocco and then to Europe.  The pipeline will stretch 5,300km from Nigeria to Dhakia in Morocco and 1,700km from Dhakia to northern Morocco.

It will traverse several African countries, including the Republic of Benin, Togo, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Senegal and terminate in Morocco with a spur to Spain.

Morocco’s Arabic language daily Hespress quoted local officials as saying in late 2024 that Rabat and Nigeria could turn to oil-rich Gulf countries to fund the gas pipeline project after it failed to spur enough interest by Europe.

The paper said the lack of European interest is mainly due to the growing trend in the continent to rely more on hydrogen projects.