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The International Monetary Fund has agreed to extend $1.3bn to Rabat under its resilience and sustainability facility, to support renewables and energy efficiency schemes, and to strengthen Morocco’s resilience against natural disasters. It comes just ahead of the IMF and World Bank Group annual meetings, which are going ahead as scheduled in Marrakech on 9-15 October.

Disasters in Morocco and then Libya in the first half of September – the first a natural disaster, the second largely the product of human mismanagement – have put renewed pressure on the authorities in both countries.

The agreement for Senegal to become only the second African economy to secure a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) has the potential to salvage the climate financing framework’s credibility, which appeared to be flatlining.

Guangzhou-headquartered Tinci Materials will invest up to $280m to build a Moroccan lithium-ion battery input plant. Transition minerals developments are proceeding at pace in Morocco, which is Africa’s largest car producer and is looking to make inroads in electric vehicle production. Mineral processing is a key plank in the value chain. African Energy outlines the other significant transition minerals projects, which are in the works in Morocco.

Sound Energy’s deal to bring Yemeni-owned Calvalley Petroleum into the Tendrara gas field could help it to deliver a project that should answer some of state utility Office National de l’Electricité et de l’Eau Potable (Onee)’s feedstock problems, following the end of Algerian supplies through the Europe-Maghreb Gasline (GME) in 2021 . African Energy takes a closer look at Morocco's gas supply options.

London AIM-listed Sound Energy has secured a provisional deal for Calvalley Petroleum to take a 40% stake and provide funding for its two-phase onshore Tendrara gas project. Sound has also lined up a debt financing package for Tendrara phase 2, led by Casablanca-based Attijariwafa bank.

Moroccan utility the Office National de l’Electricité et de l’Eau Potable (Onee) has requested expressions of interest (EoI) for the design, supply of equipment, installation and commissioning of the 300-400MW M’Dez El Menzel pumped-storage hydroelectric power (HEP) plant.

The prospects for giga-scale renewable power projects in North Africa have never been better, leveraging off export-led green hydrogen projects and the advantages of adding cheap non-emitting capacity to already well-developed grids. But the latest figures from African Energy Live Data show that, over the next five years, North Africa will instead pour ever more natural gas into a growing fleet of open cycle plants, while relatively few wind and solar projects have firm completion dates.

Xlinks First has announced details of £30m ($37.4m) funding for its project to lay the world’s longest high-voltage direct current (HVDC) subsea cable, from Morocco to the United Kingdom.

State-owned utility Office National de l’Electricité et de l’Eau Potable (Onee) has issued a tender for the construction of a 900MW open cycle gas turbine (OCGT) power plant adjacent to Al-Wahda dam and the Maghreb-Europe Gas Pipeline (GME). The project’s estimated cost is MD6bn ($592m).

Elcora Advanced Materials is preparing to make its first manganese shipments from Morocco, while also developing a vanadium mine with plans to supply the European battery market.

Xlinks, which has grandiose plans to generate 3.6GW of renewable energy (RE) in Morocco to dispatch to the United Kingdom, has reportedly entered advanced talks for Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa) to provide financial backing so that work can start on what would be the world’s longest undersea cable.

Rabat has pushed ahead with legal reforms that could open up the electricity supply industry and encourage more self-generation, but observers fear the entrenched interests of state utility Onee and regional utilities will continue to delay meaningful change, writes John Hamilton.

Amea Power executive chairman and founder Hussain Al-Nowais in late February provided a detailed insight into 11 of the Dubai-based developer’s projects under development in African markets.

Chariot Energy sees its Anchois gas discovery as a potential new gas province in Morocco’s Atlantic offshore zone, where many other upstream players have previously failed to make a definitive commercial find. A farm-in opportunity beckons.