Morocco's Natural Gas discoveries of early 2022: What to make of it?
In January 2022, two UK-based oil companies, Chariot Limited and Predator Oil & Gas Holdings PLC, made positive announcements on two gas fields in Morocco. These natural gas discoveries generated considerable attention. This is often not surprising for a number of reasons: a hydrocarbon discovery (oil and natural gas) is an important event in itself given the prominence of hydrocarbons in global energy (oil and natural gas together account for around 60% of global energy consumption), and in world economic and geopolitical affairs; a discovery creates hopes and expectations, and occasionally leads to disappointment; and a discovery may also generate controversy, either due to a misunderstanding of basic hydrocarbon industry technical concepts, which can lead to misinterpretation, or due to questionable communication on the magnitude of the discovery by the company or companies involved.