Jerada

Jerada is an urban municipality in the Oriental region and the capital of Jerada province.¹ Jerada has been a province since 1994.² The town lies in a mountain barrier between the plain of Oujda, at around 550 metres, and the high plateaus to the south, which stay at about 1,000 metres.³ This barrier averages 1,300 metres in height and is 25 kilometres wide; its highest point is Djebel Ben Keltoum at 1,667 metres.⁴

As early as 1908 the geologist Louis Gentil reported outcrops of Carboniferous rock in the east of the country; in 1927 engineers of the Belgian company Ougrée-Marihaye proved the existence of a workable coal basin.⁵ In December 1928 the Bureau de Recherches et de Participations Minières was founded, and in 1930 the Société Chérifienne des Charbonnages de Djerada brought the competing interests together; the state held a third of the shares, Ougrée-Marihaye the majority.⁶ By the end of 1930 the mine had produced 832 tonnes of anthracite.⁷

Water for washing the coal was found at Guenfouda, some 20 kilometres from the mine; a sorting and washing plant for 65 tonnes an hour was built there in 1936.⁸ Guenfouda lay on the road and railway from Oujda to Bou Arfa; from 1931 to 1934 a 22-kilometre aerial ropeway was built between the mine and Guenfouda, carrying about 80 tonnes an hour.⁹ In 1938 output reached 135,000 tonnes.¹⁰

From December 1946 the mine was run by the Charbonnages Nord-Africains, a mixed-economy company with mostly public capital.¹¹ Its output rose fivefold, from 102,000 tonnes in 1943 to 565,000 tonnes in 1953.¹² The focus shifted to the southern basin at Hassi Bellal: a new shaft reached 459 metres, a washing plant handled 250 tonnes an hour, and a 45-kilometre branch line with seven tunnels linked the site to Guenfouda; the new installations had been working since 1952.¹³

In 1956 Knibiehler put the reserves at 100 million tonnes of anthracite with a calorific value of 7,500 to 8,000 kilocalories per kilogram; it was Morocco’s only coal deposit.¹⁴ In 1954 the company employed about 4,800 men, and some 25,000 people depended on it for their living.¹⁵

The mines were last operated by the company Charbonnages du Maroc; they were closed in 1998.¹⁶ In its best years the deposit had yielded up to 700,000 tonnes a year.¹⁷

At the 2024 census Jerada had 41,014 inhabitants in 10,141 households.¹⁸ In 2014 there had been 43,506.¹⁹ Jerada province, with 103,527 inhabitants, is one of the five provinces of the region whose population fell between 2014 and 2024, by an average of 0.49 per cent a year.²⁰ The province also includes the town of Aïn Bni Mathar with 15,488 inhabitants.²¹

Jerada has a thermal power station run by ONEE: the old plant was in service from 1971, and since 2017 a new plant with an installed capacity of 350 megawatts has been operating alongside it, built by the Chinese company SEPCO III for about three billion dirhams.²² In 2023 ONEE began the dismantling of the old plant with a tender for the planning work.²³