The United States is actively courting Morocco as a priority partner in natural gas infrastructure development, with a high-level Moroccan institutional delegation’s strategic study visit to Houston, Texas — the heart of the American energy industry, reported Aujourd’hui Le Maroc. The mission, organized under the U.S. Trade and Development Agency’s (USTDA) reverse commercial mission program, brings together officials from the Ministry of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development, the National Office for Electricity and Water (ONEE), and the National Electricity Regulatory Authority (ANRE).
The Houston agenda covered the full natural gas value chain: extraction and production, LNG import and export, pipeline development, storage infrastructure, and gas-to-power generation. American companies attending the briefings were invited to meet Moroccan energy decision-makers and to present technologies and services relevant to planned infrastructure projects. The USTDA has positioned itself as the U.S. government’s primary tool for developing critical infrastructure in emerging markets, and Morocco’s rapidly advancing gas program has clearly attracted Washington’s strategic attention, the publication reported on its web site.
The timing reflects Morocco’s accelerating commitment to building a national gas infrastructure system. A strategic protocol signed in March 2024 brought together five ministries and five public entities — including ONHYM, ONEE, and Nador West Med — to coordinate a multi-year program designed to give Morocco multiple LNG import entry points alongside a national pipeline and storage network. The program is explicitly linked to Morocco’s broader energy transition: gas infrastructure will support the scaling of renewable energy, provide backup capacity for the grid, anchor the green hydrogen and derivatives value chain, and enable Morocco’s role as an energy bridge between Africa and Europe.
The centerpiece of the gas strategy is Nador West Med, the new deep-water port complex on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast. The port hosts the country’s first LNG terminal, with an annual import capacity of five billion cubic meters, alongside a hydrocarbons terminal. Total public and private investment in the Nador West Med complex has reached 51 billion dirhams, and all core infrastructure — 5.4 kilometers of breakwaters, four kilometers of quays, and four energy berths — is now complete, the publication recalled.
The Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline project adds a further continental dimension. ONHYM Director General Amina Benkhadra confirmed to Reuters that an intergovernmental agreement on the 25-billion-dollar, 6,900-kilometre pipeline will be signed this year. A project company will be established in Morocco as a joint venture between ONHYM and Nigeria’s NNPC. First gas deliveries from the initial segments, connecting Morocco to Mauritanian and Senegalese fields, are projected for 2031, with a maximum capacity of 30 billion cubic meters per year, of which 15 billion are earmarked for Morocco and European export markets.
