Page 10 - DMEA Week 25 2022

DMEA PIPELINES DMEA

Parties meet to discuss

Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline

AFRICA OFFICIALS from Algeria, Niger and Nigeria At the time of the Niamey signing, Sylva
met in Abuja this week to discuss plans for the said: “This project will be transformational for
Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline (TSGP) follow- all the countries involved and we in Nigeria are
ing the signing of a framework agreement in committed wholly to making it a success. It will
February. bring jobs and much needed revenue from gas
Algeria’s Minister of Energy and Mines monetisation.”
Mohamed Arkab said that talks with Niger’s The pipeline project has been discussed
Minister of Energy and Renewable Energies, since the 1970s, with several routes suggested
Mahamane Sani Mahamadou, and Nigerian amid concerns about security risks. Meanwhile,
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Timi- another, potentially competing, gas pipeline pro-
pre Sylva were both “important and success- ject is also moving forward.
ful”, noting that they had laid the “first building In late May, the Nigerian government
blocks” of the project, which he noted should be approved a proposal for a gas pipeline that will
implemented as quickly as possible. connect the country with Morocco, running
Four months ago, the parties signed the ‘Dec- through the territorial waters of 13 countries.
laration of Niamey’, setting out plans to develop The Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline (NMGP)
a 4,128-km pipeline that will carry up to 30bn will connect Nigeria with Benin, Togo, Ghana,
cubic metres per year of gas from Warri in Nige- Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea,
ria’s Delta State across Niger and on to Algeria’s Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania,
Hassi R’Mel gas hub, from which it will be fed Morocco, before running across the Mediterra-
into existing infrastructure that runs to southern nean to Spain.
Europe. The price of the project has been esti- However, the first 678 km is already
mated at $13bn, much of which is expected to be accounted for in the form of the West Africa Gas
spent in Niger. Pipeline (WAGP), which runs from Nigeria to
During this week’s meeting, the ministers western Ghana via Benin and Togo.
agreed to maintain consultations with a tech- In April, Australia’s Worley was awarded the
nical working group formed in Abuja that was main front-end engineering design (FEED) con-
tasked with the preparation of a feasibility study tract for the 7,000-km line that is seen as an alter-
for the project. They also agreed to meet in Alge- native gas supply route for European countries as
ria by the end of July. they seek to replace Russian flows.™

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