Africa-focused energy exploration company Chariot announced on Wednesday that it has completed the “Front-End Engineering Design” (FEED) for its flagship Anchois offshore gas project in Morocco. This process aims to assess the project’s expenses and extensively plan before placing a bid submission.
The project, which covers an area of more than 2,300 kilometers squared in a water depth that ranges from coastline to 850 meters, falls under the Lixus Offshore drilling license. Chariot holds 75% of the project’s interest and operatorship while Morocco’s Hydrocarbons and Mines Office (ONHYM) holds 25% of the interest.
The energy group began the FEED for the Anchois development in June 2022, after the company raised $25.5 million (MAD 257 million) to advance this phase of the project.
In parallel with the FEED, other technical work has been in progress, including conducting onshore and offshore environmental baseline surveys as part of the Environmental, Social Impact Assessment (ESIA), and developing the project’s drilling planning.
Chariot’s Chief Executive Officer Adonis Pouroulis celebrated the “excellent progress” the company has made across “all aspects” of the Anchois development project, noting that “detailed discussions” on partnering, gas sales agreements, and project finance are ongoing.
The conclusion of the FEED phase is an “important step in defining the initial development plan to deliver gas to our anchor customers,” Pouroulis said, stressing that Chariot has “further cemented the viability and commercial potential of the development.”
He highlighted the project’s “excellent reservoir and gas properties,” as well as its favorable location in regard to existing infrastructure and the opportunity to benefit from existing technology.
“We remain fully focused on taking the Anchois project to first gas in a way that can continually grow the resource and project scale and help unlock the basin scale potential that we see across our licence area,” Pouroulis concluded.
The Morocco Offshore Gas project is part of Chariot’s efforts to improve the African energy market for mining operations by providing and generating “cleaner, sustainable, and more reliable power,” detailed the company.
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