The Moroccan government has opened up for another oil block further offshore the territory it holds under occupation.
The new block, called ‘Boujdour Deep Offshore’, is located to the west of the block currently explored by Kosmos Energy. The block appears on a map that was published on the webpages of the Moroccan state oil company ONHYM.
The new block is what they label as the category “open acreage”, meaning that the government is searching for partners to sign the first licence. The ONHYM map is seemingly dated 23 October 2013.
‘Boujdour Deep Offshore’ is located offshore the territory of Western Sahara, under Moroccan illegal occupation. UN has stated that any further oil exploration of the territory will be in violation of international law unless the people of the territory want it to take place. They don’t.
Read the 2002 UN legal opinion here.
The territory is treated by the UN as an unresolved colonial issue. Half the population of Western Sahara fled the territory as Moroccan forces invaded the territory in 1975.
Read more about the different oil programmes in Western Sahara at page 4-5 in the Western Sahara Resource Watch report Totally Wrong.
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Israeli company to explore gas in occupied Western Sahara
Israel's NewMed Energy today announced it has signed a deal with Morocco to produce natural gas offshore Boujdour, bringing former Cairn Energy back into the occupied territory.