Spokesperson of Morocco’s government Mustapha Baitas has responded to concerns over Russian energy imports amid reports of “manipulation” of market prices.
In a press conference following the government council on Thursday, Baitas said that import of Russian gas before and with the current government has always been within the range of 10% of total imports.
“Import of Russian gas was in the range of 9% in 2020 and did not exceed 5% in 2021,” he said.
Russia’s gas exports to Morocco remained within the limits of 9% last year, Baitas argued, stressing that Morocco has been putting all efforts into importing Russian coal, whose “import contributed to controlling” the country’s electricity bill.
Commenting on energy prices, Baitas said that the average price of gas since the beginning of the current “is characterized by convergence from various sources, because it is subject to the logic of supply and demand.”
Baitas’s remarks come after a report from the Wall Street Journal drew attention to growing demand for Russian oil in North Africa, including in Morocco.
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Morocco’s imports of Russian diesel increased to reach 2 million barrels as of January compared to 600,000 barrels in 2021, the Journal wrote, detailing that Russia would be sending at least 1.2 million barrels in February 2023.
The report also echoed concerns over Russian oil cargoes “being blended” with other oil products and re-exported to Europe amid Western sanctions on Russian oil over the Ukraine war.
“That prowess disguises the ultimate origin of the products and complicates Western efforts to remove Russian fossil fuels from their economies,” the journal wrote.
The concerns were exacerbated after a Moroccan MP accused energy companies in the country of manipulating the origins of the products being sold on the Moroccan fuel market.
Abdelkader Taher, a member of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USF), addressed a question to the Ministry of Economy on February 17, to call on the government to open an investigation into what he called “manipulation” of the oil market.
Taher said that some companies that import Russian oil – which is 70% cheaper than other international energy products – are involved in fraud as they change import documentation, including receipts, to pass their products off as imported from Gulf countries or the US.
Energy companies have been resorting to this fraudulent change of their products’ origin countries to make enormous profits off crisis-hit Moroccan consumers, the MP fumed, urging the government to intervene to put an end to this trend.
