Rabat- According to the Moroccan daily Akhabar Al Youm Al Maghribiya, Morocco possesses around 900 million barrels of oil reserves. The estimate was made byAntonio Brufau Niubó, CEO of Spain’s Repsol, which in charge of oil prospections in the waters between Morocco and the Canary Islands.
The same source said that other more optimistic estimates suggest that Morocco may have around 2 billion barrels of oil reserves, adding that Amina Benkharda, head of Morocco’s Office of Hydrocarbons does not deny that Kingdom sits on important reserves, although she made some reservations about the figure announced by Repsol’s President.
If the companies estimates turn out to be accurate, this could result in tensions between Morocco and Spain over the ownership of this potential oil reserves, since there has been no delineation of borders between the two countries in this area.
In recent years, there has been growing interest in the kingdom’s potential oil reserves. Oil giant, Chevron and BP showed great interest in investing in Morocco’s offshore drilling. Both of them acquired this year blocks off the coast of Agadir in southern Morocco.
Morocco imports virtually all its energy needs and last month began implementing a fuel price indexation system to rein in its unaffordable oil subsidies.
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