Page 6 - AfrOil Week 01 2021

AfrOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT AfrOil

Morocco invites investors for

Mohammedia port LNG upgrade

MOROCCO THE Moroccan government has invited inter- in the latter year.
national firms to bid for its ambitious project to
upgrade Mohammedia port near Casablanca to Financing for Tendrara LNG
host a floating storage and regasification unit In related news, the UK-based upstream energy
(FSRU) for LNG imports, the state news agency company Sound Energy has reported that it
MAP reported. The closing date for bids is Jan- secured binding conditional agreements for a
uary 25, 2022. loan of $18mn (MAD167mn) to finance the first
The move aims to guarantee all of Morocco’s phase of its Tendrara LNG project in Morocco.
gas requirements. Gas supplies to the country The company had struck a deal funding for
from neighboring Algeria stopped on October the initiative in July of last year. However, it has
31, 2021, as diplomatic relations between the faced challenges in moving the deal forward.
two countries deteriorated. The LNG agreement involves the supply of at
Energy Minister Leila Benali has said she least 100mn cubic metres per year to the Moroc-
expects Morocco’s gas demand to triple to 3 bcm can firm Afriquia Gaz, which is providing the
by 2040 on the back of the country’s desire to loan. Afriquia is a subsidiary of Moroccan con-
achieve a lower-carbon transition and to ensure glomerate Akwa Group.
an adequate supply of renewables. Sound Energy will now proceed to draw
The government said earlier that it inetnded down the initial funding from the loan in order
to raise the share of renewables in its electricity to proceed with the execution of the first phase
mix to 52% by 2030, 70% by 2040 and 80% by of the project over a three-year period. The debt
2050 in terms both of power generated and of financing will expire in December 2033. The
capacity. agreements are secured with a fixed interest rate
Wind, solar and hydropower energies are of 6% per annum with interest payments to be
already gaining momentum in Morocco’s elec- paid quarterly for a short period of time.
tricity sector. According to the green energy The $18mn loan includes a prior condition
think tank IRENA, renewable electricity gener- that Italfluid Geoenergy provides a gas pro-
ation capacity increased by an impressive 50% cessing and liquefaction facility, as well as ver-
between 2015 and 2020 – and already accounted ification of the Tendrara joint venture partners’
for 33% of the country’s total installed capacity issuance of a notice to proceed to Italfluid. ™

INVESTMENT
Angola still not setting firm deadline for

sale of 30% of Sonangol via IPO

ANGOLA ANGOLA’S government is gearing up for the
partial privatisation of the national oil company
(NOC) Sonangol but has not yet set a target date,
according to Edson Pongolola, the director of
the firm’s planning and control department.
Speaking in late December, Pongolola con-
firmed that Luanda was still preparing to unload
30% of the NOC’s equity through an initial pub-
lic offering (IPO) of stock and might begin the
process before the end of 2022, in line with pre- Sonangol headquarters (File Photo)
vious statements. He also stressed, though, that
the government would not schedule the IPO “Sonangol’s privatisation exercise does not
until it was certain that the company was a suffi- [have to] end in 2022,” he said in statements
ciently attractive prospect. broadcast by Radio Nacional de Angola (RNA).

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 01 05•January•2022