The Federal Executive Council (FEC) in a meeting presided by Vice President Prof Yemi Osinbajo, approved a MoU between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC Limited) and Economic Committee of West African States (ECOWAS), for the construction of Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline.
Worthy of note
- Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, while briefing newsmen after the FEC meeting said that the Nigeria-Morocco pipeline initiative is at the front-end engineering design phase.
- Mr. Timipre Sylva stated that the cost of the gas pipeline poised to run through 15 countries would be determined after the front-end engineering design phase.
- Also, the federal government approved N3.8 billion for the construction of a switchgear room and installation of power distribution cables and equipment for a local manufacturing oil and gas park in Ogbia, Bayelsa.
Quick catch-up
Nigeria and Morocco signed a trade deal to transport Nigerian gas from Nigeria to the North African country, with its final destination being Cadiz, Spain. This move is to leverage the supply gap created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
What you should know
- The gas pipeline would transport Nigerian gas from Nigeria through every coastal country in West Africa region (including Benin, Togo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Senegal, and Mauritania), to Tangiers, Morocco, and Cádiz, Spain.
- While the primary sponsors of the trade deal are His Majesty King Mohammed VI and His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari, the Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDB) has made financial contributions to the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) study.
- IsDB made a donation of $15.45 million to the Moroccan government and $29.75 million to the Nigerian counterpart as both countries would equally share the cost of the FEED Study estimated to cost $90.1 million.