This historic project is expected to set a record as the world’s longest offshore gas pipeline, covering some 5,600 km across 11 African countries.
NNPCL and the National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines (ONHYM) are jointly financing the project in equal parts.
NNPCL managing director Mallam Mele Kyari, who was speaking in Abuja on Thursday, said the Corporation’s pipeline project, which will link Nigeria to Morocco, is already in Phase II of the preliminary design study, and is undergoing an environmental impact assessment and rights of way investigations.
According to Kyari, NNPCL is taking advantage of Nigeria’s huge natural gas reserves of more than 200 billion cubic feet, which could grow to 600 billion cubic feet as more investment is expected due to the recent resolution of production sharing contract disputes with partners.
He said the large reserve will provide a low-carbon energy alternative that will support growth in the energy and industrial sectors, fight poverty, reduce the carbon footprint and create more job opportunities.
He added that Nigeria’s gas infrastructure network has the capacity to transport about 6.9 billion standard cubic feet of gas to support power generation.
The Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline is one of the flagship projects linking the two countries through several West African countries. Studies for this mega-project are at an advanced stage and memoranda of understanding have been signed in recent months.
The first was signed between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Kingdom of Morocco.
Two others were signed between Morocco, Nigeria and Mauritania on the one hand, and Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal on the other.
Five other tripartite memoranda of understanding were concluded respectively and successively between Morocco and Nigeria, on the one hand, and Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Ghana, on the other.
The strategic Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline project, which emanates from the far-sighted vision of His Majesty King Mohammed VI and Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari, will run along the West African coast from Nigeria, through Benin, Togo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Senegal and Mauritania to Morocco.
It will be connected to the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline and the European gas network and will also supply the landlocked states of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali.
