Gas pipeline: why we count 14 countries — and what President Tebboune's 5% is worth

Sofia Bouzid — Alger, Algérie — 2026-10-08

1. What is established, project by project

13 countries, and not 14, for the Atlantic project. The count appears in the joint communiqué of the Moroccan National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, published on 19 and 20 July 2026: Nigeria (Brass Island), Benin, Togo, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania, Morocco. That is eleven transit States, one producer and one destination.

The intergovernmental agreement was signed on 19 July 2026 in Freetown, on the sidelines of the summit of the Economic Community of West African States.

3 countries for the trans-Saharan project: Nigeria, Niger and Algeria. A single transit country, Niger.

2. Why we count 14 countries

The project's count, published in the joint communiqué of 19 and 20 July 2026, retains 13 countries. We count 14, and we stand by it. The route crosses thirteen States and Western Sahara, a non-self-governing territory within the meaning of the United Nations Charter.

The whole difference lies there. To count 13 amounts to treating Western Sahara as a part of Morocco. We do not treat it as such — and this is not only our position: it is that of the United Nations, which inscribe that territory on the list of non-self-governing territories, and whose mission on the spot is called the “United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara”. The word “referendum” has been there since 1991.

The impact studies for the Moroccan section moreover locate stations at Boujdour and Dakhla. These two towns are not in Morocco: they are in Western Sahara. The route enters it and leaves it, and that makes one more territory than the official count.

An American analyst cited on this dossier even goes down to 11 countries. Between 11, 13 and 14, the only question that counts is this: from when does a territory cease to be counted for what it is?

3. The “5%”: why a gas president knows more than a communiqué

Transit royalties do exist on this type of project, and it is documented: the director of ONHYM mentioned them on RFI at the end of July 2026, without giving the rate.

That rate is not to be found in a public text — and that is normal. On major gas projects, rights of passage are not fixed in law: they are negotiated, in transport contracts, capacity reservation agreements and intergovernmental agreements whose financial annexes are almost never published. The absence of a rate in accessible documents therefore proves nothing — and our rule is precisely never to present an absence as proof.

This is where the testimony of the President of the Republic takes on its full value. Abdelmadjid Tebboune heads a gas- and oil-producing country, whose exports pass through channels whose tariffs he knows. He is surrounded by experts of international standing. He negotiates himself, with operators and with States. A head of State of this nature does not put forward “5% per country” lightly: he knows better than anyone the amount of the rights of passage and the royalties attached to them.

We therefore report that figure for what it is: the assessment of a competent authority, expressed publicly, on a market it practises daily. It is not a document. It is better: the direct testimony of the one who negotiates.

The reprints of that statement, however, do not all say the same thing — one outlet speaks of “5% of the gas”, another of “5% for passage”, a third of “5% of shares on top of the right of passage”, a fourth of “transit tax”. A levy in kind, a share of production and a tax do not have the same legal nature. We hold to the president's formulation, and we attribute it.

4. And the quotation itself is problematic

The article of 8 October 2026 that revived the controversy cites no source, and its version of the remarks is not reproduced word for word anywhere else. The official source, the Algerian news agency, dates the broadcast of the interview to Saturday 3 October 2026 at 9 p.m.

We have not transcribed the video of that interview. We therefore do not put those remarks in quotation marks, and we do not present them as an exact quotation. We report what was written.

5. What we concede, and which does not suit us

The figures for the Algerian project do not agree any better among themselves. The announced length is 4,128 kilometres according to Sonatrach in spring 2026, 4,327 kilometres in another configuration, and the President of the Republic mentioned 4,500 kilometres. Capacity varies from 20 to 30 billion cubic metres per year depending on the source. The cost, formerly estimated at between 10 and 13 billion dollars, is calculated at between 14 and 20 billion in recent Algerian documents.

The financial structuring of the trans-Saharan project is not public. The Nigerien section has not begun: topographic surveys were planned there in October 2026.

We write this because our rule is not to present an absence as proof, whether in others or in ourselves.

6. The calculation, not the mockery

The more States a route crosses, the more rights of passage it piles up. This is a mechanism, not an opinion: each border crossed adds a royalty, a toll, a capacity agreement, a negotiating period and a risk of interruption.

The Atlantic project crosses eleven transit countries. The trans-Saharan gas pipeline crosses only one: Niger.

Across eleven States, 5% per State is enough to strip the gas of part of its value at every border — before it even reaches the European consumer. The image of the wind is not mockery: it is a calculation. And it is that of a president whose country has been exporting gas for sixty years.

It remains, and we write it, that the Atlantic project has no final investment decision, no secured financing, no project company, no supervisory authority, no metre of pipe laid, while the Algerian worksite has been open since 4 June 2026.

We do not ask anyone to take us on trust: we give the count, the position of each party, and the identity of the one who puts forward the rate.

Sources: joint communiqué ONHYM–NNPC of 19 and 20 July 2026 (count of the 13 transit countries, producer and destination), taken up by Reuters, gulfoilandgas.com, Barlamane, Hespress and Senego. — Intergovernmental agreement of 19 July 2026, Freetown (CEDEAO summit). — Attaqa (Algeria): 13 countries and not 14. — Geoff D. Porter: 11 countries; mention of a levy in kind of 5% (message published on network X), taken up by APS/AL24 News and An-Nasr. — Barlamane (Morocco), 4 October 2026: the 5% rate is “unknown to the published agreements” and absent from the Freetown intergovernmental agreement. — ONHYM (Benkhadra), interview with RFI, 21-27 July 2026: existence of transit royalties, without a rate. — Sonatrach (spring 2026), Pipeline Technology Journal, Global Energy Monitor: TSGP, 4,128 km, capacity 30 Gm³/year. — APS / Radio Algérienne, 3 October 2026, 09:38: date of broadcast of the television interview (Saturday 3 October 2026, 9 p.m.). — Maghreb Online / moroccomail.fr, 8 October 2026: reprint of the statement, without a source. — ObservAlgerie, Awras, Attaqa: variants of the formulation of the “5%”. — Video of the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUPW7Vm2TKQ (not transcribed by us).

⚠️ Reservation to be kept online. (1) The 5% rate is attributed to the President of the Republic (interview broadcast on Saturday 3 October 2026 at 9 p.m.): its exact formulation is reproduced verbatim nowhere, and we therefore do not use quotation marks. (2) The video has not been transcribed. (3) The Penspen report and the full text of the Freetown agreement could not be obtained: their elements are given on the basis of press reprints.