Morocco’s Office National de l’Electricite et de l’Eau Potable (ONEE) has invited companies to submit bids for a financial advisory contract on its planned $4.6bn gas-to-power project at Jorf Lasfar.

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

• Marine jetty at Jorf Lasfar
• Liquefied natural gas (LNG) importing terminal, including storage
• High-pressure gas pipeline that will connect 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

Consultants have until 9 December to submit bids for the financial advisory role. 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.

In September, MEED reported that ONEE had invited firms to bid for the technical advisory role for the gas-to-power project.

The planned 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.

Morocco is the biggest energy importer in North Africa and has benefited financially from the drop in global energy prices over the past 18 months.