Morocco To Get Spanish Electricity On Long-Term Basis.

The three-month trial period for Spanish power supplies to Morocco through the Straits of Gibraltar will be followed by an annual contract. This will be renewable automatically unless either party notifies the other of termination within an agreed period before the year's end. The deal is between Spanish power marketing company Endesa Energia and the Moroccan state utility L'Office National de L'Electricite (ONE). The trial period is the first quarter of 1998.

A unit of Spanish utility Endesa, the supplier is providing the ONE with up to 300m kW/hour. The electricity is wired through an inter-connector built across the straits by Endesa and inaugurated last September. Endesa has a 30% share in a joint venture with the ONE and Electricite de France (EdF), which is building a thermal power plant at Tahadart. Endesa has a share in another JV supplying water and energy services in Casablanca. But the role of Endesa Energia as a direct supplier of power from Spain to Morocco has strategic dimensions as the company intends to market its surplus electricity to other Maghreb countries, including Algeria, Tunisia and Libya as these countries' power grids are already inter-connected through a Maghreb programme backed by the Kuwait-based Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD).

Eventually, Endesa could supply Egypt during high-demand periods as well.

The Maghreb countries and Egypt will be connected with the European power grids through three links which in the future will be parallel to three natural gas pipelines from the south to the north. A 9 BCM/year gas pipeline from Algeria, on stream since November 1996, goes to Spain through Morocco and the Straits of Gibraltar.

With the inter-connected Egyptian and Libyan power networks to be linked to Europe across the Mediterranean and through Italy, ENI is planning to build a gas pipeline from Libya to Italy via Tunisia and Sicily - which will run somewhat parallel to the 25 BCM/year TransMed pipeline (see surveys of Algeria & Libya in Vol. 48).

Egypt's power grid is to link up with Europe from the east through Turkey, with the inter-connection to include the Palestinian territory, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. ENI is to build a gas pipeline from Egypt to the Palestinian territory under a deal signed last month (see Gas Market Trends).