By: OrePulse

Nigeria's state-owned oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), invited investors — including the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) — to help finance a planned 6,800-kilometer natural gas pipeline linking Nigeria and Morocco. NNPC Group Chief Executive Bashir Bayo Ojulari announced during a conference session at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (ADIPEC) on November 2.

Ojulari said the pipeline, planned jointly with Morocco's state hydrocarbons office, ONHYM, would have capacity for as much as 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually and would run through 13 countries along Africa's Atlantic coast. He put the project's cost at $25 billion to $26 billion, equivalent to roughly 91.8 billion to 95.5 billion UAE dirhams, and did not identify prospective investors beyond ADNOC. The state-run News Agency of Nigeria has separately cited an estimate of $25 billion for the same pipeline; the reason for the differing figures was not disclosed in the available reporting.

Ojulari said the push for outside investment follows a deal reached in September among the countries situated along the pipeline's route. He said construction would proceed in stages, beginning with an expansion of the existing West African Gas Pipeline — in which NNPC holds a 24.9 percent stake — running toward Sierra Leone. NNPC has previously said that of the 30 billion cubic meters envisaged annually, 15 billion cubic meters would be routed to Morocco and onward toward European markets.

He also addressed the separate Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline, saying the governments of Nigeria, Algeria and Niger have settled on how that project will be funded. The line, which also involves Algeria's state energy company, Sonatrach, and Niger's state oil and gas company, SONIDEP, would run 4,327 kilometers and is estimated to cost between $10 billion and $13 billion, equivalent to roughly 36.7 billion to 47.7 billion UAE dirhams. He said formal talks on a final investment decision for the Trans-Saharan project are expected to begin in 2027. A new section of the pipeline in Algeria reportedly began construction in June 2026, though that detail could not be independently confirmed [uncertain].

Ojulari separately addressed NNPC's long-discussed plan to sell shares to outside investors, telling Reuters in an interview published November 3 that no timeline has been set for an initial public offering, even though a baseline business assessment of the company was completed and submitted in September. He said NNPC is weighing the sale of between 5 percent and 10 percent of its equity, primarily to Nigerian domestic investors, and has retained advisers who worked on the initial public offering of Saudi Arabian oil producer Saudi Aramco.

NNPC and officials from Nigeria's Ogun State also discussed reviving the Olokola liquefied natural gas project separately in October.