Two pipelines, one prize: how Algeria and Morocco are fighting over Europe's gas

Europe banned Russian gas. Two rival African routes are racing to fill the gap, and the rivalry is as political as it is commercial.

When the European Union shut the door on Russian gas in January 2026, it turned a long running North African rivalry into a contest with real stakes. Two enormous projects promise to carry West African gas to Europe by very different paths.

Algeria backs the Trans Saharan Gas Pipeline, routing Nigerian gas north through Niger to the Mediterranean. Its relaunch was sealed by a sudden reconciliation between Algiers and Niger's military leadership, a thaw few in Washington saw coming. Morocco champions a rival Atlantic route, the Nigeria to Morocco line, paired with its Atlantic Initiative offering landlocked Sahel states a way to the ocean.

Each route is a bet on geography and alliances as much as on engineering. Whichever advances will shape who supplies Europe, who leads in the Sahel, and where the balance of Maghreb power settles for a generation.