Oilserv Eyes Participation in $25bn Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline Project 

Peter Uzoho 

Oilserv Group, an indigenous Nigerian Engineering, Procurement And Construction (EPC) company and contractor handling the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) pipeline project, has indicated its readiness to participate in the construction of the $25 billion Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline (NMGP) project and other emerging gas pipeline projects.

The Chairman and Group Chief Executive Officer of Oilserv, Mr. Emeka Okwuosa, who disclosed this during an online interactive session with journalists, said his company had build enormous capacity and experience in delivering pipeline projects both in Nigeria and many parts of the world.

The proposed $25 billion, 5,600-kilometre Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline is expected to link Nigeria and Morocco, opening a possibility for a new energy supply path from West Africa to Europe.

According to plans, the pipeline would be an extension of the existing West African Gas Pipeline, which runs from Lagos to Cotonou, Benin; Lomé, Togo; and Tema and Takoradi in Ghana.

The infrastructure will also connect Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire; Monrovia in Liberia; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Conakry, Guinea; Bissau, Guinea-Bissau; Banjul, Gambia; Dakar, Senegal; Nouakchott, Mauritania and Tangiers, Morocco with possible extension to Europe through Cádiz in Spain.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) Limited had at the weekend signed four additional Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with four countries on the execution of the gas pipeline.

Okwuosa, who was recently presented with a national award -Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON), by President Muhammadu Buhari, stated that the biggest bottleneck in the utilisation of gas energy in today’s Nigeria was the unavailability of pipelines to distribute for both local consumption and for international sales and delivery. 

 “So Oilserv is always ready and well prepared to be able to make the difference in the delivery of the emerging pipeline projects in the continent. 

“The Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline is actually one of the two major international pipelines that are being envisaged. The pipeline is the one that will take off from Kano and go through Niger Republic and Algeria and end up in Europe. 

“The project that is actually hot now and is on board in terms of process is the Nigeria-Morocco which will run offshore West Africa to North Africa. It will go all the way from the Niger Delta to offshore Lagos.

“It will then go through all the countries on the coast of West Africa until it gets to Mauritania.  And then it goes on land from the back of Mauritania to Morocco where it crosses the channel until it gets to Spain.

“So these are the key pipelines that are upcoming, and we are very aware of the opportunities and we have been part of that. We know that it is a project that might require more than one contractor to execute, but we want to be part of it because we have the capacity to deliver our scopes,” Okwuosa stated.

He said the company had achieved a lot in the country over the past 25 year of its operations, attributing the success to the deployment of experienced workforce and determination to make impressions first in the oil and gas industry and in other sectors and areas of the entire country. 

According to him, Oilserv had been involved in many projects and had been able to deliver projects that were difficult in relation to technical and environment, in managing human beings and organisations and in terms of security.

He maintained that oilserv has been able to overcome very difficult situations and delivered projects to its valued customers and clients, pointing out that the company has built several pipelines in difficult terrains including on land, swamps, on mountains and across rivers. 

Expressing his delight that a Nigerian company could develop the necessary skill sets and capacity that would enable development of oil and gas facilities of world class standards, Okwuosa noted that opportunities would always be there because the economy will continue to grow.