By CHIJIOKE OKORONKWO

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has given approval for the NNPC to enter into agreement with ECOWAS for the construction of the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline.

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, briefed State House correspondents after FEC meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Sylva said that the project was still at the point of the front end engineering design after which the cost would be determined.

The pipeline would traverse 15 West African countries to Morocco and Spain.

“The Ministry of Petroleum Resources presented three memos to Council.

“The first memo, Council approved for the NNPC Ltd to execute MoU with ECOWAS for the construction of the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline.

“This gas pipeline is to take gas to 15 West African countries and to Morocco and through Morocco to Spain and Europe,’’ he said.

The minister said that the council also approved the construction of a switch gear room and installation of power distribution cables and equipment for the Nigeria oil and gas park in Ogbia, Bayelsa, in the sum of N3.8billion.

He said that the park was to support local manufacturing of components for the oil and gas industry.

More so, Sylva said that FEC approved various contracts for the construction of an access road with bridges to the Brass Petroleum Product Deport in Inibomoyekiri in Brass Local Government in the sum of N11billion plus 7.5 per cent VAT.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline was proposed in a December 2016 agreement between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Moroccan Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (National Board of Hydrocarbons and Mines) (ONHYM).

The pipeline would connect Nigerian gas to every coastal country in West Africa (Benin, Togo, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Senegal and Mauritania), ending at Tangiers, Morocco, and Cádiz, Spain. (NAN)

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