RABAT (Reuters) - French energy firm Engie plans to sell its stake in Morocco's largest coal plant in Safi (SAFIEC), to focus on renewables and energy infrastructure, the company's North Africa director said on Friday.
"By January 2027, we plan to have already divested from all our coal assets," Loic Jaegert-Huber told Reuters on the sidelines of a Moroccan-French business forum in Rabat.
"We are committed to divest from SAFIEC," where Engie has a 33% stake, he said.
The company has received expressions of interests from potential buyers, he said, without elaborating.
Engie's partners are considering green ammonia as an option to decarbonise the 1,386 MW plant, he said.
Engie also operates a 300MW wind park in Tarfaya, Morocco's largest, and is building a desalination plant and a wind farm to power it in Western Sahara's Dakhla, in partnership Moroccan private energy company Nareva.
"The wind park will be ready next year and few months afterwards the desalination plant will be operational," Jaegert-Huber said.
The desalination plant would direct 90% of its water to irrigation and the remaining 10% would be used to meet the drinking water needs of Dakhla.
Engie is also interested in Morocco's energy infrastructure projects, he said, citing the 3-gigawatt cable link that would connect Dakhla in Western Sahra to Casablanca.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told the business forum his country was ready to finance the cable, which experts say would cost up to $3 billion.
Western Sahara has been disputed between Morocco - which calls it its southern provinces - and the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which demands a separate state there.