The Morocco-Nigeria gas pipeline project is moving up a gear. The studies are at an advanced stage. THE megaproject is now in the second phase of the preliminary engineering studies and is the subject of a budgetary envelope which should amount to 25 billion dollars. Once completed, the project will change the face of the Atlantic and benefit to 440 million Africans.

The Morocco-Nigeria gas pipeline is in the second phase of preliminary engineering studies. It is now undergoing an environmental impact assessment and right of way surveys. This is what Mallam Mele Kyari, Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NPCIL), said during the 2023 edition of the Energy Forum organized on Thursday March 6 by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) in Abuja.

Represented as the longest offshore gas pipeline in the world covering around 5,600 km and crossing 11 African countries, the megaproject seems to be attracting partners in West Africa. Indeed, Rabat hosted, on December 5, the signing of five tripartite memoranda of understanding (MoUs), respectively and successively between Morocco and Nigeria, on the one hand, and Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Ghana, on the other.

With all these agreements signed and the interest aroused by the various parties, the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline is proving to be on the right track. And this, thanks to the enlightened vision and High Orientations of HM King Mohammed VI and Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

And it is not for nothing that it arouses so much enthusiasm. The Morocco-Nigeria gas pipeline, un large-scale project of strategic importance. Its vocation is not limited to shortening distances, far from it. But he wants to be a a path of development and integration capable of improving the lives of nearly 400 million people. But also to guarantee the energy security of African and European countries.

Without forgetting that this structural project will give a new impetus to Morocco on the African continent on the economic and political levels and will strengthen the position of the Kingdom as a leading African country in investment in Africa.

It is therefore a vital artery capable of offering, both in Morocco and in Nigeria, multiple opportunities to be seized. In this sense, Mohamed Bouden, political scientist and president of the Atlas Center for the Analysis of Political and Institutional Indicators, underlines, in a statement to MAP, that the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline project will greatly contribute to the improvement of Nigeria’s GDP. As it will be of great economic contribution for the kingdom insofar as it will allow the reinforcement and the diversification of the choices and alternatives on the energy market.

25 billion investments

The Nigerian National Oil Company (NNPCL) plans to invest $12.5 billion. A sum that will allow it to obtain a 50% stake in the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline project, the budget of which should amount to 25 billion dollars.

Moreover, the announcement was made on March 6 in Abuja by the Nigerian group’s CEO, Mallam Mele Kyari, during the Energy Forum and picked up by the Nigerian and Moroccan media.