Morocco

CIA Factbook
Political rights and civil liberties (Freedom House)
Arabic-English online dictionary
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Source: CIA Factbook

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• Morocco and Western Sahara Minerals
• Morocco Cities,Towns, Airports, Maps, Images
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Copper

• Odyssey Resources Ltd (TSXv: ODX) is exploring the Alous copper-silver property consisting of 34 licenses; 16 staked directly and 100% Odyssey owned, and 18 acquired from the Moroccan government. It covers 6 known copper-silver deposits wih a total resource of 7,993,000 tonnes of which 5,407,000 tonnes are in the indicated category with an average grade of 0,78% Cu containing 95,2 million pounds of copper, and 2,586,000 tonnes are in the inferred category with an average grade of 0.54% Cu containing 31,1 million pounds of copper.

Gold in Morocco

Gold Home

• Managem, through its subsidiary, Akka Gold Mining Company, started producing gold from the Iourirn gold deposits, 280 kilometers south-east of Agadir, in 2001.

• Sanu Resources Ltd (SNU.V) has been granted thirteen exploration licenses in four blocks covering 52 square kilometers in the Nador-Al Hoceima area of north-eastern Morocco. The staked areas cover four distinct Miocene alkalic volcanic centers with significant areas of pyritic mineralization, argillic alteration and silicification and the possibility of epithermal gold deposits.

• Office National de Hydrocarbeure et Des Mines, the Moroccan governments' exploration and mining agency, owns the Tafrent deposit with a current published resource of 5,6 million tonnes at an average grade of 1,22 grams per tonne gold.

• Odyssey Resources Ltd (TSXv: ODX) is exploring is the Talouine gold property, located in the southern Anti Atlas, west and on strike of the Tafrent gold deposit. The property consists of three exploration licenses for a total of 48 square kilometres. It is also investigating the Tizintfirst copper-gold property, which comprises of a single, 16 square kilometre exploration license hosting a gold and copper bearing gossan.

Lead

• Truffle Capital, a Paris-based equity company that describes itself as a pioneer investor in the energy sector, and Emerging Capital Partners (ECP), an international private equity firm based in the US, paid US$53 million for a 100% stake in Compagnie Miniere de Touissit (CMT).
  CMT specialises in the exploration, extraction and treatment of silver-bearing lead and silver-bearing zinc. It works several underground mines and operates an ore treatment plant at Tighza, southeast of Meknes.
  The investment was made through newly established Osead Maroc Mining, formed in July after Truffle Capital and Moroccan Infrastructure Fund (MIF) - controlled by ECP and Attijari Invest - acquired the controlling stake in the Mining Company of Touissit.
  Attijari Invest is the private equity arm of Attijariwafa Bank, Morocco's largest bank and the eighth largest bank in Africa.
  

Oil and Natural Gas

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According to January 2006 estimates by the Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), Morocco has proven oil reserves of 1.07 million barrels and natural gas reserves of 60 billion cubic feet (Bcf). Morocco may have additional hydrocarbon reserves, as many of the country's sedimentary basins have not yet been explored.
Morocco produces small volumes of oil and natural gas from the Essaouira Basin and small amounts of natural gas from the Gharb Basin. Consequently, Morocco is the largest energy importer in northern Africa. The country’s total yearly costs for energy imports range from $1- $1.5 billion. However, high oil prices in 2005 increased import costs to approximately $2 billion for the year. In 2003, the Moroccan government announced that foreign companies could import oil without paying import tariffs. This followed a 2000 decision, in which, Morocco modified its hydrocarbons law in order to offer a 10-year tax break to offshore oil production firms, and to reduce the government's stake in future oil concessions to a maximum of 25 percent. The entire energy sector is due to be liberalized by 2007.
The Moroccan Office of Hydrocarbons and Mining (ONHYM) has become optimistic about finding additional reserves - particularly offshore - following discoveries in neighboring Mauritania. At the end of 2005, 19 foreign companies were operating in Morocco, with an estimated total investment of $56 million per year.

Recent activity in Western Sahara, which is believed to contain viable hydrocarbon reserves, has been controversial. In 2001, Morocco granted exploration contracts to Total and Kerr-McGee, angering Premier Oil and Sterling Energy, which previously had obtained licenses from the Polisario government. In 2005, the government-in-exile of the Western Sahara invited foreign companies to bid on 12 contracts for offshore exploration, with hopes of awarding production sharing contracts by the end of 2005. Both Premier Oil and Sterling Energy received conditional exploration rights. Foreign companies operating under Moroccan concession in Western Sahara have become targets of international protest campaigns. These companies include Total, Wessex Exploration Ltd, Svitzer (the British subsidiary of the Dutch company Fugro), Wales' Robertson Research International and Norway's TGS Nopec. All have ended their operations in Western Sahara, with the exception of Kerr-McGee. As of November 2005, the company was the last to be drilling in Western Sahara, although the Polisario government has pressured it to pull out.

• Oil production: 300 bbl/day (2005 est.)
• Oil proved reserves: 100 million bbl (2006 est.)

• Natural gas production: 50 million cu m (2004 est.)
• Natural gas proved reserves: 1.218 billion cu m (1 January 2005 est.)

• In March 2004, Calgary-based Stratic Energy Corporation committed to a three-year exploration program in two onshore blocks in northwest Morocco. The two concessions cover approximately 1,544 square miles.

• In April 2004, Norway's Norsk Hydro signed a 12-month exploration contract for the Safi Offshore Northwest zone, while Denmark's Maersk signed an eight-year agreement for eight blocks near Tarfaya.

• In May 2004, China National Oil Corporation (CNOOC) received a license to drill near Agadir.
  

• Other foreign firms engaged in exploration include Petronas, Cooper Energy NL, Shell, Total, and Tullow Oil.
  

Uranium

• Toro Energy Limited (Australian) announced that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Moroccan Government for an exclusive prospect evaluation study over regions containing historic uranium mineralisation in Morocco. Under the terms of the agreement, Morocco’s Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines has granted Toro exclusive evaluation and review rights for a six month period, covering 30 permits in three regional areas: Haute Moulouya-Ment, Wafaga and Sirwa (Zgounder) Morocco has known historical uranium occurrences delineated by Russian and French exploration which ceased in 1982 and production of uranium is believed to have occurred from the Zgounder silver mine. More than 100 uranium occurrences have been previously identified.

• Areva NC (COGEMA) signed an agreement in October, 2007, with the Office Cherifien Des Phosphates (OCP), a Moroccan mining and chemical industries conglomerate, that will see it extracting uranium contained in the country's phosphate rocks. The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) figures put Morocco's uranium resources in phosphate deposits at around six million tons, which corresponds to twice the world's resources in uranium deposits. OCP, a state-owned agency formed in 1920, is solely responsible for the Benguérir, Khouribga and Youssoufia mines in central Morocco. The country's enormous measured phosphorite resources of 85,000 Mt are hosted in Upper Cretaceous, Palaeocene and Eocene sediments, and sequences comprising clays, marls, limestones and cherts contain several phosphate-rich beds. Mineable phosphate-rich beds range from one to three metres in thickness and grades from 22% to 28% P2O5. Morocco produces more than 23 million tons of ore per year.
  

Zinc

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