Marrakech — The Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline will facilitate the integration of the African continent, said the Managing Director of the National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines (ONHYM), Amina Benkhadra, on the sidelines of the Africa Investment Forum (AIF).
“This strategic project, launched by His Majesty King Mohammed VI and former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, will enable us to move towards this integration of the African continent, which we absolutely must develop,” Benkhadra told MAP news agency, adding that this project should contribute to access to energy not only for populations who lack it, but also to develop extremely important industrial and mining sectors.
The CEO of ONHYM emphasized that all the countries crossed by this pipeline have mineral resources that require energy, noting that this project is in line with the integration of Africa, in which the Sovereign is particularly interested as part of the cooperation policies pursued in various sectors with sister African countries, based on a win-win partnership.
In this sense, Benkhadra pointed out that Morocco is an example in several sectors, thanks to the Royal vision. “We have been fortunate to have extremely ambitious visions and strategies in a number of sectors. These include industry, energy, phosphates and agriculture,” said the official.
Thanks to this vision of the industry, she added, the Kingdom is today a leading country in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which is developing the entire value chain for the production of precursors and battery that are needed for electric vehicles and will be extremely important in 2030 and 2040.
“Major projects are being launched with key Chinese and Korean players to build new factories to manufacture lithium- and phosphate-based batteries,” announced Benkhadra.
She added that this was an example and a model of success that could be developed elsewhere, especially as Morocco enjoys political stability, a geographical position close to Europe and the MENA region, and an extremely attractive investment charter that reassures private investors.
