Morocco currently has gas reserves estimated at 39 billion cubic meters, while gas production in Africa should increase by a third by 2030, if industrial plans are carried out for this wave of new projects, as revealed by the American NGO ” Global Energy Monitor “.
Indeed, according to Global Energy Monitor which tracks the global oil and gas situation, Nigeria, Egypt, Libya and Algeria, which historically have the most proven gas reserves and production, may be overtaken by other countries. The NGO explains that monitoring data shows that 84% of new developing reserves are located in new entrants to the gas market in Africa, including Mozambique, Senegal, Tanzania, Mauritania, South Africa, Ethiopia or Morocco.
Morocco’s current reserves, the NGO reveals, are around 39 billion cubic meters of gas, while Mauritania has 574 billion cubic meters, part of which comes from joint reserves with Senegal, which are estimated at 566 billion cubic meters.
In his report, Global Energy Monitor » expects these countries to accelerate gas development in the near term and even predicts that Mozambique, Mauritania, Tanzania, South Africa and Ethiopia will account for more than half of the future in the future. gas production in Africa by 2038.
Thus, the NGO estimates that the realization of projects in African countries, and in order to achieve the results expected by governments, requires investments estimated at 329 billion dollars, which will allow the extraction of gas and the establishment appropriate infrastructure for export.
Moreover, the total of new reserves in these countries amounts to more than 5.138 billion cubic meters, raises the NGO, which will make it possible to produce potential emissions equivalent to approximately 11.9 billion tons of carbon dioxide. carbon, taking up in this sense the environmental challenge in these regions.
At the end of December 2022, the CEO of the British company SoundEnergy (in charge of oil and gas exploration in Morocco), Graham Lyon, declared in an interview that ” Morocco has a great wealth of natural gas reserves, and that this will help it achieve self-sufficiency, and even move into exporting gas to international markets”.
Graham Lyon confirmed at the time that “ there are two key projects being studied and carried out, one of which concerns the supply of liquefied natural gas to the main industrial markets, while the other involves the development of a gas pipeline to supply gas to the markets of electricity “.
” There is a project in Morocco that will supply around 100 million cubic meters per year of liquefied natural gas to industrial markets “, he confided, noting that production and sales could start in the first quarter of 2024.
The CEO of the British company also revealed that Morocco has significant reserves of natural gas estimated at more than 20 trillion cubic feet even to make it an exporter, which is a record, he said.
He also noted that “ Morocco’s Tendara field will play a key role in achieving Morocco’s objectives, as the country aims to develop markets and international transactions “.
It should be recalled that Sound Energy currently manages three fields in the eastern regions of the Kingdom, with 47.5% of the capital invested, against 27.5% for Schlumberger and 25% for the National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines (ONHYM) . In these new projects, the British company will operate and hold a 60% stake, while ONHYM will hold the remaining 40%.