Chariot aumenta su financiación para la extracción de gas en Marruecos gracias a sus accionistas

The British company Chariot announced that it had raised more than $4 million through an open offer share sale. This was a great success, as it obtained a stake of more than 347% in the available shares; a support that Julian Maurice-Williams, the company's financial director, wanted to thank its shareholders for.

This energy group focuses its efforts on offshore gas extraction in Moroccan waters, covering an area of more than 2,000km2. It has raised money in the past, and last month the company raised more than $25 million for engineering and design studies for the project.

But Chariot's actions have been going on for a long time; back in February the group closed a deal with Morocco's National Office of Mining and Hydrocarbons (ONHYM) for a licence to explore and drill in the northern Moroccan city of Larache. All this after announcing a month earlier a significant gas discovery in this area, thanks to the work carried out in the Anchois-2 well. 

It should be noted that the British company holds 75% of the Lixus licence to work in this area, corresponding to the Anchois project, while the remainder is held by ONHYM. This project was rejected in 2014 by Repsol, who in 2009 together with Gas Natural (now Naturgy) discovered a gas field in the same area, in the well called Anchois-1.

But it was Chariot, not the Spanish company, that was confident in Morocco's energy potential, something reflected by the British company's acting chief executive, Andonis Pouroulis, who said its ambition was to develop the Anchois project quickly, among other things to boost economic growth in the African country, which has an important energy market that has yet to be exploited. 

This continues the current trend, backed up by various studies carried out by oil and gas companies, which affirm the existence of significant natural gas reserves in Morocco, something that Abdellah Mouttaqi, secretary general of ONHYM, explained: "Morocco has several onshore and offshore sedimentary basins whose geology has allowed the genesis of different petroleum systems and could potentially be favourable to the accumulation of gas deposits".  

This aspect is encouraged by the policy being implemented by the new Moroccan government of Aziz Akhannouch, which aims to promote the activity of energy companies in the country, offering different economic benefits to all those who intend to invest in Morocco.

Taking advantage of these factors, Chariot continues to focus on its project, so it is expected that everything will continue to evolve as it has done so far. To this end, the British company will continue to make the appropriate investment decisions this year, with the aim of starting on-site gas production in 2024.