Abuja, Nigeria – The President of the Financial Neighborhood of West African States (ECOWAS) Fee, Dr Omar Touray, has urged member states to work collectively swiftly to make the African-Atlantic Fuel Mission (AAGP) a actuality.
Dr Touray’s name to motion was conveyed at a joint assembly of ECOWAS Ministers of Hydrocarbons and Power, with Morocco and Mauritania in attendance, held on Friday in Abuja.
The vitality ministers’ assembly targeted on advancing AAGP’s institutional framework to boost entry to pure gasoline throughout the area and facilitate enlargement into world markets.
The AAGP is a 6,800-kilometer gasoline pipeline community that can traverse West Africa, with 5,100 kilometres offshore, linking Nigeria to Morocco and passing via a number of coastal nations, together with Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
Representing Dr Touray, Mr Sediko Douka, ECOWAS Commissioner for Infrastructure, Power, and Digitalisation, highlighted the mission’s progress and emphasised its significance.
“We’ve got reached a crucial section within the growth of this mission,” Douka mentioned. “It’s important for all events to urgently collaborate and make sure that it turns into a actuality.”
Douka underscored that the AAGP would drive financial progress by bolstering electrical energy era capability and fostering industrial and agricultural growth. “This mission is important for our area,” he acknowledged.
“Elevated entry to pure gasoline won’t solely enhance vitality manufacturing but in addition assist our nations contribute to local weather change mitigation efforts via cleaner vitality options,” he added.
To additional diversify the area’s vitality combine, Dr Touray urged ECOWAS member states to broaden renewable vitality utilization, noting that the subregion’s reliance on renewables stays low.
“At the moment, renewable vitality sources, excluding hydroelectric energy, account for less than a marginal portion of our vitality combine,” he mentioned. “Overcoming our area’s vitality challenges requires motion to strengthen our vitality sector.”
Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Assets (Fuel), Mr Ekperikpe Expo, echoed the potential influence of AAGP, describing it as essential for Africa’s vitality safety.
“Connecting Nigeria’s huge pure gasoline reserves to North Africa and Europe won’t solely drive financial progress but in addition open up new markets, foster job creation, and profit communities alongside the pipeline route,” he mentioned.
Expo additionally lauded the mission as a big step towards ECOWAS’ imaginative and prescient of an interconnected vitality infrastructure.
“The draft settlement reaffirms our dedication to enhancing commerce inside ECOWAS and increasing entry to pure gasoline in world markets,” he added.
The AAGP emerged from the merger of the West African Fuel Pipeline Extension Mission (WAGPEP) and the Nigeria-Morocco Fuel Pipeline Mission (NMGP), authorised by ECOWAS Heads of State and Authorities throughout their 63rd Abnormal Session on July 9, 2023.
As ECOWAS intensifies efforts to bolster vitality safety and financial integration, the AAGP stands as a flagship mission poised to rework the West African vitality panorama.
