Morocco’s Office National de l’Electricite et de l’Eau Potable (ONEE) has awarded a technical consultancy contract to a joint venture of France’s Sofregaz and Denmark’s Ramboll for the planned $4.6bn gas-to-power project at Jorf Lasfar.

ONEE received bids from firms in December 2015 for the consultancy role.

MEED recently reported that financial advisory firms were waiting to hear news from the client on the bid evaluation for the financial advisory contract.

MEED reported in November 2015 that financial advisers had been invited to submit bids for the role in December, but the deadline was subsequently extended and consultants submitted proposals in the first quarter of 2016.

According to sources close to the scheme, a decision on the award of the financial advisory position has yet to be made.

The project will be developed through partnerships with the private sector, with ONEE guaranteeing to be the offtaker for electricity produced from the power plant.

The Jorf Lasfar scheme was launched in December 2014 and is located 118 kilometres from Casablanca. The project will include:

• A marine jetty at Jorf Lasfar
• A liquefied natural gas (LNG) importing terminal, including storage
• A high-pressure gas pipeline that will connect the LNG terminal to the existing Maghreb Europe high-pressure gas pipeline
• 2,400MW combined-cycle power plants, which will use gas received from the LNG importing 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.

MEED reported in May that Morocco had received 93 expressions of interest (EOI) for the main packages on the gas-to-power scheme.