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Casablanca — One of the most important bilateral agreements discussed between King Mohammed VI and Nigerian President Muhammad Buhari during the monarch’s visit concerns the construction of a gas pipeline.
Here’s what we know so far:
– It will be called the “Trans-African Pipeline,” according to Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyeama.
– Once built, Onyeama says that the 4000 km pipeline “would go along the coast from Nigeria all the way up to Morocco and into Europe eventually.”
King Mohammed VI of Morocco is in Abuja, on a State Visit. Minister @GeoffreyOnyeama speaks on what his Visit means for Nigeria & Morocco pic.twitter.com/4n0BD3O0ea
— Govt of Nigeria (@AsoRock) December 2, 2016
– The pipeline would not be its own entity but will rather extend the current gas pipeline operated by Nigeria’s West African Gas Pipeline Company, which transports natural gas from Nigeria to Benin, Togo and Ghana.
– Morocco would have already gotten permission from other countries where the pipeline would be crossing, according to Le360.
– A similar project had previously been discussed between Nigeria and Algeria in 2002, but the project was abandoned after financing fell through.
At the Abuja Presidential Palace on Saturday, King Mohammed VI and Nigerian President Mahammadu Buhari chaired the launch ceremony of the project, where Foreign Ministers of both countries, Salaheddine Mezouar and Geoffrey Onyeama, read a joint statement about the pipeline, reports the Moroccan Press Agency (MAP) in an official communiqué.
According to the same source, the statement reiterated both parties’ commitment to the major project, which would “boost economic integration,” and would 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.”
The launch ceremony also confirmed the countries’ cooperation with their respective national funds, Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority and Morocco’s Ithmar Al Mawarid (also known as ITHMAR CAPITAL).
The communiqué also mentioned Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) CEO Uche Orji, who made a point of how the pipeline partnership is a model for south-south cooperation.
