Morocco and Nigeria to construct regional gas pipeline

Baku. 6 December. REPORT.AZ/ Morocco and Nigeria decided to study and take concrete measures for the construction of a regional gas pipeline which will link the gas resources of Nigeria and several other West African countries to Morocco.

Report was informed at the embassy of Morocco in Azerbaijan, the decision was taken during recent visit of the king of Morocco Mohammed VI to Nigeria where he met president Mohammadu Boukhari.

The 4000 km long Nigeria-Morocco regional gas pipeline will attract several billion dollars of investment and will create tens of thousands of jobs.

As a major project meant to boost regional economic integration, the pipeline will be designed with the participation of all concerned parties with the aim of speeding up electrification projects in the whole region, serving as a basis to set up a competitive regional market for electricity, likely to be linked to the European market of energy, to develop integrated industrial hubs in the sub-region in sectors as industry, food-processing and fertilizers, in order to draw foreign capital, improve the competitiveness of exports and spur local transformation of natural resources available for national and international markets.

To ensure the full success of this major project, Nigeria and Morocco decided to join hands and cooperate closely through their respective sovereign funds, Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority and Ithmar Al Mawarid (ITHMAR CAPITAL).

In addition to the gas pipeline project, Morocco will provide Nigeria with more than two million tons of fertilizers under the strategic partnership established between the Moroccan "OCP" and Nigerian "Dangote", which aims at building a large Fertilizer plant and a phosphoric acid unit.

The fertilizer plant will not only meet the high demand of Nigerian domestic market, but also will allow exportation of fertilizers to other parts of Africa.