Power plants28 Feb 2023 15:23
MOROCCO AT THE DAWN OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY TO SUPPLY ITS POWER PLANTS WITH NATURAL GAS.
Here we are ! We now know that Morocco's two combined-cycle power plants should be able to be, "soon" for those who know how to be patient, fully supplied with natural gas from the Moroccan subsoil.
Forcing Morocco to look for other sources of natural gas supply and a use of this cumbersome "pipe"[1] that the Maghreb Europe Gas Pipeline (GME) could have become, we can thank Algeria for having stopped to supply Morocco, even if Spain was a collateral victim.
ONEE and Chariot Oil (prospector then operator of the "Anchois" off-shore wells in the "Lixus" zone located off Larache) would have signed in December 2022 a contract to supply natural gas for 10 years of 625 MNm³ per year (millions of "normal" m³) for the combined cycle plants of Tahaddart (384 MW in the North) and Aïn Beni Mathar (452 ??MW in the East) which both produced an average of 5,700 GWh per year between 2012 and 2018, consuming 1.034 billion Nm³ per year over the same period.
With a first submarine section, a gas pipeline whose cost has not yet been announced will transport natural gas from "Lixus" to the western section of the GME within two or three years.
In all likelihood, and under the extension of an agreement already signed with ONEE in 2019 (for only 30 MNm³ initially), the additional amount, calculated at an average of around 409 MNm³ per year, should be able to be supplied by Sound Energy (prospector then operator of the TE wells in the Horst zone located in Tendrara), from the wells through another 120 km gas pipeline which will go to the eastern section of the GME (for 5.67 billion Dhs, i.e. almost twice the price of a motorway of the same length).
Fundraising for the second phase of its implementation was carried out in July 2022. Afriquia became a shareholder of Sound Energy in August 2021 (before the Akhannouch government), giving credibility to the realism of the project in the eyes of neophytes (gas prospectors and oil often make optimistic announcements).
It goes without saying that after that, it will become useless to continue importing liquefied natural gas, currently gasified in Spain before being sent via the GME. Implementing the transition phase where the two will co-exist will not be technically obvious.
The nihilists will think that 5,700 GWh annually represents only 13.5% of the net electricity called for in Morocco in 2022 and that the supply of 1,034 MNm³ of local gas for the production of electricity would "only" bring nearly 4% energy independence to the 24 Mtoe that are consumed there, but the fact remains that, in recent years, it is still "the biggest drop" that will have contributed to the country's energy independence.
https://www.ecoactu.ma/gaz-naturel-autosuffisance-centrales-electriques/
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