Morocco Bets $1.2bn Dakhla Port on Sahel Trade Rerouting
Morocco is advancing a $1.2 billion deep-water port in Western Sahara that could reroute Sahel exports away from West Africa and anchor billions in green-hydrogen investments destined for Europe.
Construction of Morocco’s Dakhla Atlantic Port has passed the 62% completion mark, keeping the $1.2 billion deep-water facility on track for handover by the end of 2028 and commercial operations in 2029. Located in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, the port will feature 23-metre deep berths and handle containers, dry and liquid bulk, hydrocarbons, and seafood. Its initial annual capacity is set at 35 million tonnes.
The facility is the centrepiece of King Mohammed VI’s Atlantic Initiative, a strategy to give landlocked Sahel nations—Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad—a direct route to global markets. By building up to 5,000 kilometres of road and eventual rail corridors through Mauritania, Rabat aims to divert mineral and agricultural exports away from traditional Gulf of Guinea ports. Policy researchers project these corridors could slash Sahel-to-Atlantic transit times from 14 days to five and reduce export costs by roughly 30%.
For energy investors, Dakhla is the planned export node for roughly $35 billion in green-hydrogen investments earmarked for the surrounding region. This includes a flagship $25 billion hydrogen-to-ammonia facility aimed squarely at European offtakers. The port’s heavy-lift infrastructure is being explicitly designed to handle wind turbines, electrolysers and ammonia export equipment, positioning Morocco as a critical transit country for Europe’s energy transition.
The infrastructure play carries significant political risk. The port sits in Western Sahara, a territory whose sovereignty is disputed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front and classified as non-self-governing by the UN. Morocco is using bricks-and-mortar investment to assert irreversible economic control, a strategy bolstered by US recognition of its sovereignty in 2020. The initiative also dilutes Algeria’s traditional leverage over Sahelian connectivity and offers Rabat an alternative to its failed bid to join the Economic Community of West African States.
Transport Minister Abdessamad Kayouh has signalled that negotiations are underway for direct maritime links from Dakhla to Europe, West Africa and the Americas. However, the commercial viability of the Sahel corridors depends entirely on navigating persistent jihadist violence and political instability in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Until those security challenges are resolved, Dakhla’s promise as a logistics hinge between Africa, Europe and the Americas remains a high-risk, high-reward proposition.
