The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has given the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) the nod to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for the construction of the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline.
The approval comes as African gas supplies to Europe become more important, with the Ukraine crisis putting Russian energy exports in doubt.
Timipre Sylva, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, who presented the request for approval at a cabinet meeting in Abuja, said Nigeria and Morocco formed a joint venture in 2016 to build the pipeline, which will transport gas to 15 West African countries and through Morocco to Spain and Europe.
The agreement was between the NNPC and the Moroccan Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (National Board of Hydrocarbons and Mines) (ONHYM).
Meanwhile, the pipeline would connect Nigerian gas to every West African coastal country (Benin, Togo, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Senegal, and Mauritania), ending in Tangiers, Morocco, and Cadiz, Spain.
He said: “the project is still in the early stages of front-end engineering design, after which the cost and funding of the pipeline would be determined.”
However, the minister did not mention when construction would begin, nor be completed.
Read also: NNPC’s clean energy plan opens opportunity for investors
Nigeria and Morocco announced last year that the pipeline will be 5,660 km (3,517 miles) long and will be built in 25-year phases.
They have begun feasibility studies with the intention of building the pipeline both onshore and offshore.
The project, which has been hailed as beneficial to West African economic integration, would also add to the network of existing gas pipelines that transport supplies to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea.
The cabinet meeting on Wednesday was presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who is running for the ruling party’s nomination to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari, who is set to step down next year after serving two full terms. Buhari is currently in Spain.
On the other side, the council also approved the N3.8 billion construction of a switchgear room and the installation of power distribution cables and equipment for the Nigeria oil and gas park in Ogbia, Bayelsa.
According to Sylva, the park would support local manufacturing of oil and gas industry components.
The minister further stated that the FEC approved various contracts totaling N11 billion plus 7.5 percent Value Added Tax (VAT) for the construction of an access road with bridges to the Brass Petroleum Product Deport in Inibomoyekiri in Brass Local Government.
