Morocco and Spain to explore in Canaries

Has a new trend of co-operation replaced confrontation in the management of maritime borders in north-west Africa? Morocco and Spain are synchronising controversial exploration around the popular holiday destination of the Canary Islands, separating their interests by a ‘courtesy corridor’ inside which neither country can operate. Libya and Malta have also decided to jointly explore the disputed area of the Medina Bank. The Canaries archipelago could contain up to 1.4bn bbls of oil in fields capable of producing up to 140,000 b/d. The islands’ President Paulino Rivero has previously criticised Spanish central government plans to explore near Lanzarote and Fuerteventura as incompatible with tourism on the islands.