US agency grants Morocco's oil board $399,880

The US Trade and Development Agency (TDA) extended Morocco's ONAREP (National Office of Oil Research and Exploration) a $399,880 grant for a feasibility study to support a Geographic Information System and Information Technology Project.

The grant agreement was signed on Monday by US ambassador Margaret Tutwiler and Amina Benkhadra, ONAREP Director General.

Under the accord, ONAREP will select an American contractor to design a GIS-based "information flow system" for oil and natural gas exploration and production in Morocco. The recommended system solution will enhance and optimize present operations inside ONAREP by virtue of improved information management exchange for geo-technical, commercial and financial data. It will also create an open architecture to allow the efficient transfer of essential information between the proposed GIS system on the one hand and geo-technical analysis and interpretation workstations and financial and accounting systems on the other.

The contractor will be responsible for building a template to cover the upstream oil and gas sector in Morocco (including a national map) including the following modules: a concessions database; a seismic database; a well database; a production database capable of generating production history graphics; stratigraphy; a catalog of information; drilling data; reservoir engineering data; geo-chemical data and core analysis data.

Also provided will be financing options, environmental analysis, regulatory issues, implementation plan and staffing and training requirements.