Her five-person entourage included her Ambassador Mohamed Saleck, Communication Director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.

TAP is a Toronto-based not-for-profit organization which has worked for over 10 years on the design and plans for implementation of an 8,000 km water pipeline across the Sahel Region of Africa. The TAP desalinated sea water through the pipeline will permanently solve the drought crisis across this regional part of the African continent.

The day-long meeting with Her Excellency, Minister Fall, provided an unparalleled opportunity to review the entire TAP Project, critical issues and requirements within Mauritania, to provide the Minister with an overview of TAP’s progress to date, and to enable in-depth discussions of land, policy, financing and infrastructure requirements primarily relating to Mauritania.

TAP’s President and Co-founder Dr. Rod Tennyson has recently visited Mauritania twice. In 2015, he presented the TAP Concept to the 11-Sahalian countries’ Pan African Great Green Wall Agency (PAGGW) conference, where it was unanimously endorsed. In May 2016, he returned to sign a formal agreement with the Mauritanian Government. This critical agreement confirmed Mauritania as the starting point for the TAP Project, and was signed by Her Excellency, Minister Mbareck Fall and Dr. Tennyson.

Significant Agreements

Several significant developments were discussed at the October meeting including:​

~ Minister Fall’s agreement to work with TAP to negotiate land bank agreements for a land corridor for the pipeline;

~ the determination of specific sites for TAP operations in Mauritania,  most importantly, the site of the first large-scale desalination plant and compound;

~ the location of the concentrated solar power (CSP) site which will produce 20 Megawatts of power during Phase One of the Project, rising eventually to 80 Megawatts;

~ the location of the salt ponds, a critical component of TAP’s operation which will create thousands of tons of high-quality salt. Instead of returning the salt brine created by TAP’s desalination plants back to the ocean, which is highly-detrimental to sea life and fisheries, TAP will harvest high-quality salt from its evaporation salt ponds, which will eventually provide a commercial revenue stream.

Minister Fall will present this information to the President and Cabinet of the Government of Mauritania.

TAP – Phase One

TAP’s Phase One is scheduled to begin next spring in Mauritania – the country which also headquarters the PAGGW Agency – with the first of four coastal desalination plants, about 700 km of pipeline, four pumping stations and the first salt pond evaporation process. The land required is approximately 11 square miles (1,082 hectares) of mostly desert and the cost of Phase One is estimated at approximately US $ 1.3 billion. Minister Fall, working with her government, will assist TAP in determining suitable locations for TAP’s infrastructure, and in defining a purchase power agreement (PPA) between TAP and the Government of Mauritania for excess power generated by the solar farms.

The Minister also agreed to assist in finding a Mauritanian Professional Engineer to act as a dedicated liaison between the Government of Mauritania and TAP.

Mauritania – The Starting Point of TAP

As the most-western coastal country of the Sahel, Mauritania is a natural starting point for TAP’s Phase One, a large-scale proof-of-concept project. Mauritania, as noted, is the location of the Pan African Great Green Wall Agency headquarters, is the first country to sign an agreement with TAP, and its capital, Nouakchott, is the location of TAP’s first African office. TAP is already negotiating or preparing agreements with Senegal, to the south of Mauritania, and with Sudan and Djibouti, on Africa’s eastern coastal regions.

In October, TAP appointed its first official Africa-based Representative, Mr. Khalil Chouaib, Operations Manager for Nouakchott-based ACT Shipping, who is providing TAP’s first office in Africa in the capital. The seaport in Mauritania’s capital is large enough to handle the new SuperMax ocean tanker ships, a point the Minister found significant for the country and for construction and maintenance of TAP. Mr. Chouaib will co-ordinate not only relations with the Government of Mauritania, but also shipping of material and equipment into the country to build TAP and shipping high-quality salt to global markets, when TAP salt ponds are operational. At that point, it is estimated that Mauritania alone will be capable of exporting 800,000 tons of high-quality salt per year.

Minister Fall was also interested in the staffing and personnel of the TAP operation, in its start-up and operational stages. For TAP, it will be essential to find, hire and train thousands of Mauritanians in all stages of construction, from burying the 1.2 meter diameter pipeline to constructing the personnel compounds, from operating and maintaining the desalination plant, pipeline and pumping stations to managing security for all TAP operations. Minister Fall’s staff indicated that Mauritania has a number of highly-qualified and trained Engineers and a workforce ready to help start building the Trans African Pipeline.

This Phase One proof-of-concept in Mauritania will provide a basis for TAP implementation in all 11 PAGGW Sahel countries.

Her Excellency, as the Minister Delegate at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation of Mauritania, responsible for Maghrebian and African Affairs and Expatriate Mauritanians, following her visit to Toronto for the day-long meeting with TAP, a meeting which TAP was privileged to host, also made stops in Montreal and Edmonton to meet with local Mauritanian residents. For the continuation of her North American and European business tour, she headed to Washington DC, N.Y., Brussels and Paris for scheduled meetings with the expatriate Mauritanian local communities.

Overview – TAP:

Trans Africa Pipeline Inc. (TAP) is a non-profit Canadian organization formed to develop a long-term, permanent sustainable solution to on-going drought and desertification in the Sahel region of Africa. TAP has designed an 8,000 km. pipeline, coastal desalination plants and solar power systems to carry approximately 400,000 cubic meters of water from each coast of Africa across the Sahel countries to reduce drought, halt the on-going encroachment of the desert and ensure clean, pure drinking water for some 30 million people in the Sahel.

For more information, please contact TAP.

Released by: TAP