he agreement was signed on Tuesday in Laayoune. The U.S. Trade and Development Agency is funding a pre-front-end engineering and design study for a large-scale ammonia production plant, to the benefit of the Moroccan-registered joint venture ORNX Laayoune 1 SASU.
The study will be carried out by a consortium of American companies led by Kellogg Brown & Root, with GE Vernova, Electric Hydrogen and Terabase. Once in service, the facility is expected to produce up to five hundred and sixty thousand tonnes of ammonia a year.
The agency’s release puts no figure on its grant: the press sets it at 5.7 million dollars, for a complex valued at 4.5 billion.
The United States ambassador Duke Buchan, who signed alongside the Wali of Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra, Abdesalam Bekrate, called it “the first U.S. federal financing in Morocco’s Sahara”. The USTDA release also places the project in “Morocco’s southern provinces”.
The agency also notes that ammonia is a key ingredient in fertilizer, the very matter over which Washington is presently weighing the countervailing duties levied on OCP.
Photo: Zakaria Taberkant / Commune of Laayoune, CC BY-SA 4.0.
U.S. Trade and Development Agency - USTDA Supports Major Ammonia Project in Morocco’s Southern Provinces (28 July 2026)
Bloomberg - US Backs Morocco Ammonia Plan With First Funds for Disputed Area
