Morocco MTEDD Notice n°1/DGMH/2026 — Public Tender for 361 Mining Exploration Zones in Tafilalet-Figuig (13,000 km²)

Mechanism

Notice n°1/DGMH/2026 is Morocco's first large-scale, multi-substance competitive mining tender under the ESG-weighted evaluation framework announced at the 24 November 2025 Marrakech Declaration (Morocco's International Mining Conference). It opens 361 discrete "zones d'intérêt" — roughly 13,000 km², about 22% of the full Tafilalet-Figuig mining region — for gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc and barite exploration/exploitation across two administrative tracks:

• Drâa-Tafilalet blocks, filed with the MTEDD regional directorate in

Errachidia.

• Oriental blocks, filed with the MTEDD regional directorate in Oujda.

Award criteria are explicitly multi-criteria rather than price-only: technical capability, financial standing, and local socio-economic contribution are weighted alongside health-and-safety compliance — the same "innovative measures" framing MTEDD used to describe the round's break from Morocco's historically administrative (non-competitive) mining permit allocation. Candidacy files are due 15 May 2026, 16:30 local time.

Why severity 2

This is a tender launch, not a completed award — no zones have yet been allocated to named bidders, so there is no confirmed capital commitment or company exposure to score against (unlike Saudi Arabia's 9th Exploration Licensing Round, 2026-01-02-saudi-arabia-9th-mining-exploration-licensing-round, filed at conclusion with SAR 44bn of committed project value). The scale is nonetheless quantifiable and material: 361 zones across ~13,000 km² (~22% of the designated Tafilalet-Figuig region) is the largest competitive mining tender Morocco has run to date, in a chokepoint-tier country with thin IPTM coverage (register previously held no action on Morocco's state mining-exploration/licensing apparatus). Severity is capped at 2 pending the award outcome; expect an amendment or follow-on filing once zones are allocated.

Downstream implications

• Morocco FDI signal. First major competitive (rather than

administrative) mining tender under the post-Marrakech-Declaration ESG framework; tests whether international gold/copper/base-metal explorers engage at scale with Morocco's non-phosphate mining sector.

• Gold/copper/base-metal supply pipeline. Adds a fourth African

jurisdiction (alongside DRC, Zambia, and South Africa exposure already in the register) to watch for new exploration-stage discoveries feeding 2030+ global supply.

• Precedent for other MTEDD rounds. Establishes the multi-criteria

ESG-weighted tender template MTEDD is likely to reuse for subsequent mining regions beyond Tafilalet-Figuig.

Open questions

• Bidder list and award outcome. Zones are not yet allocated; the

15 May 2026 deadline and subsequent evaluation timeline are the next concrete data points — file an amendment once awards are announced.

• Foreign vs. domestic capital split. Whether the local

socio-economic weighting in the evaluation criteria favours Moroccan operators over international majors in practice.

• Overlap with existing OCP/ONHYM concessions. Whether any of the 361

zones abut or overlap active phosphate (OCP) or hydrocarbons (ONHYM) concession boundaries.