TSGP: Niger gives a date, and the Saharan corridor leaves the page

Fernanda Almeida — São Paulo, Brésil — 2026-09-27

The route of the trans-Saharan gas pipeline, from Warri, in Nigeria, to Hassi R'Mel, in Algeria, then on to Europe via Medgaz and Transmed. In solid blue, the route already under way — work on the Algerian section was launched on 4 June 2026 at Aoulef, in Adrar wilaya. In red dotted line, the 841-kilometre Nigerien section, whose topographic surveys are announced for early October. In the boxes, the dossier's two markers: Aoulef (work launched) and the Nigerien section (surveys to come).
The route of the trans-Saharan gas pipeline, from Warri, in Nigeria, to Hassi R'Mel, in Algeria, then on to Europe via Medgaz and Transmed. In solid blue, the route already under way — work on the Algerian section was launched on 4 June 2026 at Aoulef, in Adrar wilaya. In red dotted line, the 841-kilometre Nigerien section, whose topographic surveys are announced for early October. In the boxes, the dossier's two markers: Aoulef (work launched) and the Nigerien section (surveys to come).

The trans-Saharan gas pipeline was long a line on a map and a sentence in a press release. It now has a timeline, a surveyed route, a first well drilled and a first cargo sold.

Niger's Minister of Oil, Hamadou Tini, has just announced that the topographic surveys of the pipeline route on Nigerien soil will begin in early October. Those surveys precede construction of the section — which itself has not yet started.

It is a modest step, and it must be said. But in a project of this size, a modest step announced by a minister is worth more than a speech.

The project, in four figures

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The trans-Saharan gas pipeline (TSGP) — the project's figures

Total length, from Warri (Nigeria) to Hassi R'Mel (Algeria) | 4 128 | km

!Nigerien section, whose surveys begin in early October | 841 | km

Target capacity | 30 | billion m³/year

Estimated cost of the works | 13 | billion $

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Four thousand one hundred and twenty-eight kilometres. Thirty billion cubic metres a year. Thirteen billion dollars.

To gauge what this project represents, it must be compared with what it replaces: gas that, today, does not circulate. Nigeria flares or reinjects part of its gas for lack of an outlet. Europe is looking for suppliers outside Russia. And between the two lies the Sahel — which everyone crosses by air.

The TSGP proposes to link the two by land.

Where the construction site actually stands — and the gap is clear

Precision is required here, because this is where the truth of the dossier lies.

The Algerian section, for its part, is under way. Work was launched on 4 June at Aoulef, in Adrar wilaya, heading toward Hassi R'Mel.

The Nigerien section, for its part, is still waiting for its first sod to be turned.

And a date had already been announced. On 16 February, Abdelmadjid Tebboune had announced the launch of the project alongside General Abdourahamane Tiani, right after Ramadan.

What has happened since deserves to be said plainly: the steering committee session, held on 3 June in Algiers, validated the updated feasibility study by the British firm Penspen. It set no definitive timetable and announced no final investment decision.

In other words: the project has a validated study, a settled route, and not yet any money.

The point that remains open: financing

The financing of the Nigerien section is still unknown. That is the most important fact in this dossier, and it has to be faced squarely.

Thirteen billion dollars for the complete works. A country emerging from several years of sanctions, whose budget has been under strain, does not finance 841 kilometres of pipeline on its own.

The question, then, is not whether the TSGP is a fine project — it is. The question is who will pay for the Nigerien section, and under what conditions.

And that question, to this day, has no public answer.

What is moving forward all the same — and it is not nothing

It would be wrong to reduce this dossier to a financial uncertainty. Because while the pipeline waits, something else has already begun.

On 13 August, Prime Ministers Sifi Ghrieb and Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine gave the go-ahead for drilling the Kafra exploration well. The drilling is entrusted to ENAFOR, a Sonatrach subsidiary, with a target depth of 3 900 metres. The Kafra block covers 23 737 square kilometres, between the departments of Iferouane and Bilma.

In August, Sonatrach and Sonidep — the Nigerien national oil company — jointly marketed a first cargo of Nigerien crude, loaded from a terminal in Benin.

A first cargo sold by two of them is little. But it is a fact, and a dated fact is worth more than an intention.

And there are the reserves. The Nigerien minister puts at some 255 million barrels the proven and probable reserves identified in the country since 2018, and places at 2,5 billion barrels at most the prospective resources of the northern part of the block. He remains cautious, and he is right to be: a geological discovery, he warned, does not yet make a production project.

That caution is to his credit.

What Niger is asking for, and what Algeria gains from it

Behind the pipeline there is a precise demand, and it is broader than a pipe.

Hamadou Tini argues for a long-term partnership covering the whole of the Nigerien oil chain — from exploration to marketing, right through to the maintenance of the Zinder refinery and the sale of crude. Appointed on 6 January in place of Sahabi Oumarou, this chartered accountant who passed through the Mazars firm in Dakar wants to bind Sonatrach to his country's oil sector over the long term.

The framework already exists. In March, Mohamed Arkab and Hamadou Tini signed a memorandum of understanding in Niamey, during the second session of the Great Joint Commission. The text provides for training programmes, exchanges of experts and a transfer of technology. Algiers offers to host Nigerien executives at the Algerian Petroleum Institute and in Sonatrach's schools.

And the minister insists on a point that is not a detail: cooperation must train Nigerien engineers who are to take on technical responsibilities.

That is where the difference between a relationship and a dependency is decided.

What this dossier says, beyond gas

Three things, and they go beyond the energy frame.

First, the Saharan corridor now exists physically. It is no longer a theoretical axis: there is an Algerian section under construction, a Nigerien route to be surveyed from October, an oil block being drilled, and a cargo already sold. Each of these elements is modest. Put end to end, they form a reality.

Second, the project is advancing from the bottom up, not from the top down. No final investment decision has been announced, and yet the well is being drilled, the crude is being sold and the surveys are being prepared. That is how infrastructure is built when financing is difficult: you begin with what does not depend on a loan.

Third — and this may be the essential point — Niger is not asking only for a pipe. It is asking for an industry, for training, for skills. A country that wants engineers rather than deliveries is looking for something other than aid.

The TSGP is not yet a pipeline. It is a construction site that has ceased to be a speech.

And in that region, that is already a great deal.

Sources: Maghreb Émergent, 26 September 2026 — “Trans-Saharan gas pipeline: Niger gives a date for its section” (dispatch passed on by the editor-in-chief) · statements by Niger's Minister of Oil, Hamadou Tini, reported by that dispatch and by Algerian public television · Algerian Ministry of Hydrocarbons — steering committee of 3 June in Algiers, launch of work on the Algerian section on 4 June at Aoulef · Sonatrach / Sonidep — first joint cargo of Nigerien crude loaded from a terminal in Benin, August 2026 · ENAFOR (Sonatrach subsidiary) — launch of drilling of the Kafra exploration well on 13 August 2026, target depth 3 900 metres · updated feasibility study by the British firm Penspen, validated on 3 June 2026.