Rabat, (Business News Report) – The Moroccan government is working to strengthen its economy by consolidating the gas industry and creating production plans from an offshore field it recently discovered.
The gas industry is expected to contribute to supporting its efforts to develop the sector and help embody the new development model on solid and sustainable bases.
“The launch of gas production is scheduled for 2024 in the offshore exploration area Lixus,” said Amina Benkhadra is the General Director of the National Office of Hydrocarbons.
Moroccan gas industry
Benkhadra said that the explored gas will be directed to produce electricity by feeding the Quneitra and Muhammadiyah or Tahdart stations and various industries in the Quneitra region in the north of the country.
Last Monday, the British company Chariot announced an offshore discovery of natural gas off the Moroccan coast.
Chariot said in a statement at the time that it had achieved positive results in drilling operations in the Anchois-2 field, off the coast of the city of Larache, on the Atlantic sea front.
The British company, which expected that the reserves of the discovered field would exceed one trillion cubic feet, owns about 75% of the rights to the exploration work, compared to 25% for the National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines.
Chariot considered that the discovered reserves of gas “exceeded expectations” that it had previously, which makes the possibility of Morocco becoming one of the gas-producing countries closer to being realized.
The company confirmed that the drilling work carried out by the Stena Don platform in the second drilling area located off the coast of Larache led to the discovery of an important gas reserve that exceeds what was discovered in the first field, Anchois-1, on the same coast.
Chariot indicated that preliminary data from the exploration work in the second drilling area indicate the presence of gas on an area of 100 square meters, which is more than what was discovered in the first drilling area, which previously showed the presence of gas on an area of only 55 square meters.
Good results
“This is a tremendous outcome and I would like to thank ONHYM, our partners on the licence, and everyone involved for their invaluable support, which enabled the well to be drilled safely, successfully and on time during a time of significant operational and logistical challenges posed by the current pandemic,” said Adonis Pouroulis, Acting CEO of Chariot.
Officials are betting on the entry of international energy companies into the country, after confirming more than three years ago that there are large reserves of oil and gas in the country that need someone to extract them.
It seems that the interest aroused by gas production in Morocco has grown a lot thanks to the technology that helped companies to discover new fields over the past decade, in areas that were previously ignored.
Morocco’s production of domestic gas is expected to reach 110 million cubic meters this year, but it will show promising prospects after oil companies discover many wells across the country.
Within the 2022 budget, the Moroccan government expects a growth in the country’s investments in natural gas production, after it reached 265 million dirhams ($29.17 million) last year.
