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The African Development Bank and Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (Masen) on 7 November signed a letter of intent to cooperate on the development of the Desert to Power initiative. The initiative targets countries in the Sahel to strengthen regional integration, transfer of technology, capacity building, technical assistance, and project development in renewable energy and resource mobilisation.

Recently appointed finance minister Mohammed Benchaâboun is tackling Morocco’s burgeoning budget deficit with reforms that some local observers are calling Thatcherite. The former banker expects to raise funds by divesting the state’s remaining saleable assets, with major privatisations for the first time in a decade.

A campaign group based in Galway and London has filed a complaint with the Irish government claiming that San Leon Energy is in breach of the guidelines for multinational enterprises set out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) due to its activities in the onshore Tarfaya and Zag licence areas. On 24 October, Global Legal Action Network (Glan) approached the Irish government’s National Contact Point (NCP), which is based in the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and deals with corporate adherence to the OECD’s guidelines.

The Casablanca commercial court is moving ahead with the liquidation of Mohammedia-based refinery company Société Anonyme Marocaine de l’Industrie du Raffinage (Samir) as legal actions continue on several fronts, including two arbitrations in the Washington-based International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (Icsid). A number of offers have been made for the plant, which has been closed since 2015, but it is unclear if any have met the liquidator’s criteria.

New York-based start-up Soluna Technologies, run by serial entrepreneur John Belizaire and backed by US private equity company Brookstone Partners, is raising funds to develop the first phase of an eventual 900MW wind farm site near Dakhla in the disputed Western Sahara, which is under Moroccan administration but still subject to a United Nations decolonisation mandate.Soluna is bringing in investors to develop the first 36MW of the scheme, which at the outset will be entirely off-grid.

Office National de l’Electricité et de l’Eau Potable (ONEE) has invited bids by 16 January 2019 for the rehabilitation of valves and ancillary works for the 17MW Daourat storage hydropower plant on the Oum Er-Rbia River near Settat. The plant, which is equipped with two 8.5MW turbines, was commissioned in 1950.

The Energy Ministry has given developer Platinum Power six new provisional authorisations for hydro sites in the country. The permits cover two sites on the Ahansal River in Azilal province – Tamajout (30MW) and Tilougguit Lower (30MW) – as well as two sites – Bab Ouender (30MW) in northern Morocco and Boutferda (18MW) east of Beni Mellal – that had previously received permits limiting their generation capacity to 12MW.

Morocco is talking to the Mauritanian government about an interconnection that would bring Société Mauritanienne d’Electricité (Somelec) into the North African Maghreb Electricity Committee (Comelec) grid. An interconnection would also link Office National de l’Electricité et de l’Eau Potable into the growing West African grid, Moroccan energy, mines and sustainable development minister Abdelaziz Rabbah told the Africa Energy Forum (AEF) in June.

AIM-listed SDX Energy has obtained European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) funding for its gas network expansion plans. The company signed a three-year $10m reserves-based lending credit facility on 18 July to finance the expansion of upstream gas production and related gas transport infrastructure to customers in the Kenitra industrial zone. SDX said the loan had an “accordion” feature taking total potential availability up to $20m.

Office National de l’Electricité et de l’Eau Potable (ONEE) has invited sealed bids by 31 October for the design, supply, installation and commissioning of hydromechanical and electrical works at the Bin El Ouidane and Ait Ouarda dams on the El Abid River in the north-central region of Béni Mellal-Khénifra. The work, which is expected to take 18 months, is to be financed from a loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which agreed in November 2015 to provide a sovereign-guaranteed loan of up to €35m to finance the ONEE Hydro Rehabilitation Project.

The Moroccan Capital Markets Authority (AMMC) on 6 July presented new guidelines covering the country’s green, social and sustainability bond markets. The guidelines were drawn up with advisory support from the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation, alongside the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development and the Hungarian Export-Import Bank.

Saudi developer Acwa Power on 29 June inaugurated its 120MW Khalladi wind farm at Jbel Sendouq, 30km from Tangiers. The completed project comprises 40 wind turbines and will produce 380GWh/yr, contributing to the reduction of more than 144,000 t/yr of CO2. Khalladi, which cost around $170m to build, is one of the first privately funded renewable energy projects in Morocco and has been developed under Law 13-09, which allows private producers to sell electricity directly to high-voltage clients.

Sound Energy announced on 8 June that it had submitted a development application to the Ministry of Energy for the Tendrara gas discovery in eastern Morocco. The application for the Phase 1 development of Tendrara covers the technical and commercial aspects of the field development plan and the outline of the development area. Sound expects the discovery to produce some 60mcf/d of natural gas, to be produced through a future 120km spur to the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline (GME), which runs from Algeria’s Hassi R’Mel fields to Spain.

A 10 June visit to Morocco by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari allowed both sides to announce the progress of plans to build a gas pipeline across north-west Africa. Moroccan media reported that the pipeline’s route, a mixture of onshore and offshore tranches, had been finalised, crossing West Africa to Morocco, which has applied to join the Economic Community of West African States as a key element of King Mohammed VI’s ‘pivot to Africa’.

The Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (Masen) has taken an important step towards assembling the finance for the second concentrated solar power (CSP) complex in the Moroccan Solar Plan. On 11 June, the World Bank announced $125m of financing for the Noor Midelt I and II plants. This includes $25m from the Clean Techology Fund initially agreed in 2017. Financial close and an invitation for five prequalified consortia to submit bids to build the plant are expected later this year.