Page 4 - AfrOil Week 05 2021

AfrOil COMMENTARY AfrOil

Proposed pipeline route (Image: Infomédiaire)
roposed pipeline route (Image: Infomédiaire)
P
Nigeria-Morocco pipeline

plans face steep hurdles

Questions about competing gas suppliers, demand forecasts and cost may sink the NMGP project

NIGERIA and Morocco have been discussing
plans for the establishment of a massive natu- Competing proposal
WHAT: ral gas pipeline network connecting more than Nigeria has been looking into the possibility of
The leaders of Nigeria a dozen African countries for more than four building a pipeline to North Africa to facilitate
and Morocco are talking years, and the leaders of both countries recently deliveries of gas to Europe for some time.
up an ambitious gas made clear that they remain strongly interested More specifically, it began holding discus-
pipeline scheme. in the project. sions with Algeria on proposals for an overland
According to Moroccan press reports, Nige- pipeline that would cross through Niger and
WHY: rian President Muhammadu Buhari and Moroc- terminate on the Mediterranean Sea coast more
These shows of support co’s King Mohammed VI discussed the initiative than 40 years ago.
for NMGP have not been
accompanied by concrete during a telephone call on January 31. Both lead- These talks bore little fruit until 2022, when
progress. ers said they were determined to press forward Abuja and Algiers signed a memorandum
with the construction of the Nigeria-Morocco of agreement outlining their plans for the
WHAT NEXT: Gas Pipeline (NMGP) and described it as a stra- Trans-Sahara Pipeline (TSP) project. Subse-
Europe’s net-zero goals tegic project. quently, the Nigerian and Algerian governments
could undercut demand Crucially, though, there are no indications carried out a feasibility study on TSP in 2006 and
for West African gas. that Buhari and the Moroccan talked in concrete then teamed up with Niger to sign an inter-gov-
terms about their plans during their phone con- ernmental agreement (IGA) in 2009.
versation. That is, they didn’t say what exactly Since then, however, the project has lan-
they intended to do next to drive the project for- guished. The stall reportedly stems from Abu-
ward – and this lack of detail may be a portent of ja’s concerns about possible security threats in
problems to come. northern Nigeria and southern Algeria

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