Marruecos está a un paso de reactivar el gasoducto GME en dirección a España
The Anchois field will soon be connected to the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline (GME). The decision was communicated by the energy company Chariot Oil&Gas and the Moroccan National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines, both 75% and 25% owners of the site respectively.
Anchois is located off the coast of the Moroccan province of Larache, in the offshore area of Lixus, with a surface area of 1794 km2. It is about 50 kilometres from the GME as it passes through Larache on its way to Tangier. According to the energy company's communication, the connection to the pipeline will allow Anchois' production to reach potential customers outside Morocco.
According to analyst Francis Perrin, a French researcher at the University of Grenoble Alpes, the Anchois development will start producing in 2024 and extract gas from the 637 billion cubic feet of contingent (eventual) reserves estimated by the US company Netherland Sewell & Associates in July 2022. These estimates, labelled too optimistic by some, are defended by Francis Perrin as the best, without being the highest or the lowest. "These recoverable resources represent the annual production of a country like Argentina or the Sultanate of Oman (around 40 billion cubic metres per year for each)", Perrin assures in an article he has written for the Policy Center for the New South.
According to Perrin, the connection of Anchois to the GME and the willingness of the actors to accelerate the production process could bring back on stream the pipeline that Algeria halted in October 2021 when it did not renew its agreement with Morocco. After months of inactivity, the Spanish and Moroccan governments agreed to reverse the direction of some of the pipeline's routes to transport regasified gas from Spain to Morocco at plants on the Iberian Peninsula.
The last step remaining for Anchois to produce is the final investment decision, for which a front-end engineering and design project, a spending plan and fund planning, has already been commissioned. It is the multinationals Subsea 7 and Schlumberger to whom the project has been attributed. Both are specialised in marine energy engineering. Schlumberger is a leader in this sector and boasts of its specialised techniques for reducing the environmental impact of gas operations.
In a communication to Chariot shareholders, the company's CEO, Adonis Pouroulis, welcomed the participation of Subsea 7 and Schlumberger in the Anchois adventure as an achievement for accelerating the project and reaching as soon as possible the monetisation of the efforts invested in Morocco. "Reduced interfaces, fewer contingencies and a strong influence on procurement and the offshore construction schedule will help shorten the time to first gas. This streamlined approach will benefit all stakeholders, which is a key objective to accelerate the project towards cash flow," Pouroulis said after announcing the partnership with the two engineering firms.
Morocco's attempts to position itself as an energy power in North Africa could bring about major changes in the geopolitical configuration of the region. Traditionally at a disadvantage compared to neighbouring Algeria in the field of hydrocarbons, the Moroccan kingdom is making considerable progress and attracting investment for its energy mix model.
If the forecasts of Perrin and the British company are true, the gas pipeline connecting Tangier with Tarifa could soon be back in operation to transport Moroccan gas to Europe in a context of energy crisis and in which the gas card is in Algeria's hand in its tense dialogue with Spain since the Sánchez government's turnaround on the Sahrawi dossier. Although the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, has always publicly stated that Algerian gas supplies are not in doubt, it is a sword of Damocles that threatens Spanish energy supplies.