Morocco’s Office National de l’Electricite et de l’Eau Potable (ONEE) has awarded a financial advisory services contract for its planned $4.6bn gas-to-power project to a UK-based joint venture of the PwC and QED Gas Consulting.

The client invited consultants to submit proposals in July last year, and received bids in October. This was the second time that the financial advisory role had been tendered, with the client having initially invited proposals for the financial advisory role in 2015. The UK's HSBC was appointed as financial adviser in January 2017, but ended up leaving the project.

The gas-to-power project, first launched in 2014, will be developed at Jorf Lasfar, 118km from Casablanca.

It will consist of:

• A marine jetty at Jorf Lasfar
• An LNG import terminal, including storage
• A high-pressure gas pipeline that will connect the LNG terminal to the existing Maghreb Europe high-pressure gas pipeline
• A 2,400MW combined-cycle power plant that will use gas received from the LNG import terminal

The LNG import terminal will have a capacity of 7 billion cubic metres and is expected to cost about $800m, while the budget for the associated pipelines and jetty is expected to be $600m.