Country: Morocco

Over 350 C-level executives from West African Governments, Oil and Gas companies, investors and top service companies will meet with ONHYM in Marrakech to discuss the Nigeria-Morocco pipeline, E&P opportunities in Morocco, and how to get involved in one of the world’s top future energy hubs. The Energy Circle by IN-VR is pleased to announce the 3rd Morocco Oil & Gas Summit and Exhibition 2023 hosted in Savoy Le Grand Hotel, Marrakech, on the 24th-26th of October, 2023, fully endorsed by ONHYM. The event’s programme will focus on the country’s and the region’s holistic hydrocarbons sector, from onshore discoveries to its vast offshore E&P potential, midstream and infrastructure plans. After two Sold-out editions, Morocco’s official Oil & Gas Summit returns for its 3rd edition to focus on opportunities, developments and projects in Morocco and West Africa, with access to 1:1 meetings with ONHYM, African Ministries and Moroccan decision-makers involved in one of the most powerful and promising energy hubs in the region. With the Nigeria-Morocco pipeline being among Africa’s most-anticipated projects, ONHYM will be welcoming an important number of African Ministries and NOCs for the Africa Regional Cooperation Roundtable, while hosting a series of networking events throughout two full days with the presence of the country’s Project Owners, such as Chariot Energy Group. Participants will be available to meet during dedicated 1:1 meetings with ONHYM and the country’s biggest Project owners, as the event has been tailored to host two full days of non-stop networking for E&P leaders to meet with Moroccan and African players in Marrakech. The 3rd Morocco Summit is expected to be the most networking-intensive event of the year, bringing under one roof ONHYM and African Energy leaders for the African Regional Cooperation Roundtable and the stage to meet operators and service companies. The Summit is open for registrations offering a full range of networking activities and exclusive content, in addition to the myriad of networking opportunities – including drinks receptions, networking breakfasts, coffee breaks and roundtable dialogues, high-level drinks receptions, and VIP private cocktails.

This story was first published on the Hawilti+ terminal on 2 September 2023. N-Sea, Netherlands-headquartered subsea services company, says it has expanded its area of operations to West Africa as it commences survey operations to support the development of the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline project. The project is led by Morocco and Nigeria’s national oil companies, the Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (ONHYM) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC). The pipeline, which has been on the table for some time, is seen as an extension of the existing West Africa Gas Pipeline (WAGP) that was commissioned in 2011. From offshore Morocco, it will run onshore to northern Morocco, ultimately connecting to the Maghreb-Europe pipeline. “To realise this project, N-Sea have worked closely with vessel owner Rederij Groen and converted the seismic support vessel, 7-WAVES, into a survey vessel with state-of-the-art equipment,” the company said in its post on LinkedIn. “The project is being run with a “skeleton” crew on board the vessel, and all data is being transferred to shore, to the N-Sea Data Centre. Daily meetings with the Client Representative, FEED Engineer, Client and our N-Sea data processors are carried out to assess data quality and route alignment.” The 5,700 to 7,000 km pipeline, linking Nigeria’s Brass Island to Morocco, is gaining traction following the tightening of global gas markets and Europe’s search for alternative sources of gas imports. If completed, it would be the longest offshore pipeline in the world, with its total capacity expected to hold 30 billion cubic meters a year.

AMEA Power, a Dubai-based developer, owner and operator of green energy projects, has developed a strong appetite for Africa over recent years. The company already built West Africa’s biggest solar plant, a 50 MW PV facility in Blitta, Togo. Its commissioned and under-construction solar projects total some 130 MW, spread between Morocco, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Uganda. The company has now embarked on a significant scaling up of its renewable energy capacity on the continent via new solar, wind, and hydrogen projects. Its has a pipeline of over 1 GW of solar PV projects in various stages of development in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Mali, Chad, Gabon, Angola, and Djibouti. In November 2022, it also signed an MoU for a new 50 MW facility in Malawi, and announced in January 2023 the signing of a concession agreement and 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for a new 50 MW solar PV project in Côte d’Ivoire. Its African portfolio is also on the verge of diversification, with wind projects of some 950 MW in total being developed in Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Last but not least, AMEA Power intends to leverage on Africa’s significant renewable energy potential to produce green hydrogen. It has currently selected Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Angola for up to 3.5 GW of green hydrogen projects that could be approved over the coming years.  

Worley has announced that it has been awarded a contract to provide main front-end engineering design (FEED Phase II) services for the 7,000km Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline (NMGP) project. The feasibility study and FEED Phase I were previously completed by Penspen. The project is led by Morocco and Nigeria’s national oil companies, the Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (ONHYM) and NNPC Ltd. If completed, it would be the longest offshore pipeline in the world. Its FEED study already received financing from the Islamic Development Bank in December 2021. The development bank had then declared that a final investment decision (FID) was targeted for 2023. The pipeline has been on the table for some time and is seen as an extension of the existing West Africa Gas Pipeline (WAGP) that was commissioned in 2011. However, WAGP has been plagued by several operational issues, including unreliable gas supplies from Nigeria and legacy debt payments from off-takers. The NMGP is expected to traverse 13 West African countries and offer African gas producers a new avenue to export their gas to neighboring countries and to Europe. Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Mauritania all have discovered gas reserves located offshore. Gas deliveries could be made across the pipeline route to African markets seeking to secure additional gas supplies or exported all the way up to Europe via Morocco. “The overall FEED services will be managed by Intecsea BV, our offshore engineering consultancy business in The Hague, the Netherlands. This includes the development of the project implementation framework and supervision of the engineering survey,” Worley said in a statement. Nigeria holds Africa’s largest gas reserves and is increasingly seeking to monetise it domestically and for exports. On February 16th, Minister of Petroleum Timipre Sylva was in Niger to sign the Niamey Declaration with his counterparts from Algeria and Niger. The agreement seeks to put the Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline (TSGP) Project back on track – another gas pipeline that would allow Nigeria to export its gas to Europe via Niger and Algeria. Earlier this month, Minister Timipre Sylva also expressed interest in reviving the Brass LNG export terminal project – a 10 mtpa LNG export scheme first discussed in 2003.

AIM-listed Chariot has confirmed the presence of significant gas accumulations in the appraisal and exploration objectives of its Anchois-2 well within its Lixius License offshore Morocco. Preliminary interpretation of the data has identified a calculated net gas pay totaling over 100m (compared with 55m at Anchois-1). At Anchois-2’s appraisal target, a continuation of a reservoir drilled by Anchois-1, the Gas Sand B notably has a calculated total net gas pay of over 50m in two stacked reservoirs of similar thickness.    At the well’s exploration targets, Gas Sands C, M and O were successfully encountered with multiple gas-bearing intervals, Chariot has said. This new significant gas discovery will help to expand the Anchois gas field and possibly expand the scale of its gas development in the future. It also significantly de-risks additional exploration prospects within the license area. Chariot has been operator of the Lixius License since 2019 with a 75% interest. The block was previously known as the Tanger-Larache permit and already included the Anchois-1 discovery made by Repsol in 2009. Anchois’s first phase of development is expected to include the drilling of four production wells tied into a subsea manifold, along with the installation of a 14in-diameter, 40km subsea flowline with control umbilical to the subsea manifold, construction of a 53 MMscfd onshore central processing facility (CPF) for exporting gas, and a 14in-diameter onshore pipeline for gas export. In October 2021, Chariot signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a leading international energy group agreeing on the key terms of gas offtake from Anchois. Under the Mou, the key terms of the future gas sales agreements will be for c.40 MMscfd, for up to 20 years on a take or pay basis. The phase two development plan is expected to involve additional wells to tie-in the Anchois W, Anchois WSW and Anchois SW areas of the field into the subsea manifold. It will be financed using the cashflow generated from first phase production. Details on the Anchois Gas Development are available in the “Projects” section within your Hawilti+ research terminal.

Chariot has announced today the commencement of drilling operations at its Lixus license offshore Morocco. The campaign will drill and complete the Anchois-2 gas appraisal and exploration well and re-enter the previously drilled Anchois-1 gas discovery well, with a view of fast-tracking the offshore gas development of Anchois. The Stena Don drilling rig is mobilized to carry out drilling operations. The Anchois gas field lies in water depths of 850m and was first discovered in 2009 by former operator Repsol. The field was then transferred to Chariot when the company was awarded the Lixius Offshore Licence in 2019. Back then, the Anchois-1 gas discovery had 307 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of 2C contingent resources offering near-term development opportunity and had identified a deeper potential not penetrated by the Anchois-1 well of 116 Bcf 2U prospective resource. Under the new licence’s commitment, Chariot reprocessed existing data which led to upgrading the total remaining recoverable resource to well over 1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas in 2020. Ongoing activities now target a final investment decision (FID) in 2022 to achieve first gas by 2024 with a production rate of 53 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscfd). Estimated capex required to bring the development online are currently anticipated to be in the region of $300-500m.