The N-Sea Group, an underwater infrastructure service provider based in the Netherlands, announced in a Facebook post on Tuesday the expansion of its West African activities, beginning with survey operations to assist the development of the $25 billion Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline project.
The company noted that it worked closely with Rederij Groe, owner of a seismic support vessel called 7-WAVES, to convert it into a survey vessel to survey the area of the pipeline that will connect with the Maghreb-Europe pipeline.
These improvements in research occur at a time when the geopolitical environment threatens the pipeline but might prove useful to future Moroccan-Nigerian collaboration. The July 26 coup in Niger disrupted the projections of the developers of the trans-Saharan gas pipeline connecting Nigeria, Niger, and Algeria. The possibility of an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) military intervention to restore “constitutional order” in Niger, as well as strained ties between the new rulers in Niamey and Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, endangers the initiative.
Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and Office of Hydrocarbon and Mining (ONHYM) are jointly funding the $25 billion project. The project is expected to set a record for the world’s longest offshore pipeline, covering approximately 5,600 kilometers across 11 African countries.