Ratba Dam
Dam and hydroelectric scheme, More than 1,000 million m3 of storage in Morocco.
Under construction
The record
- Country
- Morocco
- Location
- Oudka, Taounate province
- Coordinates
- —
- Technology
- Dam and hydroelectric scheme
- Capacity
- More than 1,000 million m3 of storage
- Capital cost
- MAD 4.5 bn overall estimated cost (Le360, June 2025), converted at MAD 9.35 per US$ (World Bank official exchange rate, 2025 average)
- Stage
- Under construction
- Owner or client
- Ministry of Equipment and Water
- Contractor
- —
- Operator
- —
- Finance
- National Programme for Drinking Water Supply and Irrigation 2020 to 2027
- Award or start year
- 2022
- Commissioned
- —
Record last checked 2026-09-20.
History
- 2022-03
works launched
- 2024-09
provisional diversion of the Oued Oulaya completed
- 2025-06
progress reported at 38 per cent
- 2026-07
progress reported at about 53 per cent
- 2028
impoundment planned
Sources
11 references
Every field in the record above is taken from the references below. A field that none of them confirms prints as a dash.
- Le360, Un milliard de m3 en chantier: le barrage Ratba franchit le cap des 38 pour cent de realisation, 29 June 2025. fr.le360.ma.
- The dam stands in the commune of Oudka on the Oued Oulaya, a main tributary of the Oued Ourgha in the Sebou basin, and will be the second largest in Morocco after Al Wahda.
- Storage exceeds one billion cubic metres, height approaches 100 metres, the rockfill embankment runs to more than 22 million cubic metres and the concrete face will cover 26 hectares.
- Overall cost is estimated at 4.5 billion dirhams including studies, works, supervision and expropriation.
- Works were launched in March 2022 and stood at 38 per cent.
- The provisional diversion of the Oued Oulaya was completed at the end of September 2024, about 6 million cubic metres of fill had been placed, the spillway was 90 per cent complete and the access road 80 per cent.
- Impoundment is set for the end of 2028, more than a year ahead of the original date.
- The project chief is Mohssine Bahtat and technical control is by the Laboratoire public d'essais et d'etudes.
- All the works are carried out by Moroccan firms, none of them named.
- Fes News Media, Le barrage de Ratba a Taounate depasse 53 pour cent d'avancement, 20 July 2026. fesnews.media.
- MENA Water Review major projects register and PPP pipeline — compiled from procurer publications, development-bank project pages and trade reporting; each record names its source.
Progress reached about 53 per cent, after about 30 per cent in mid-2025 and more than 42 per cent in September 2025, and the project includes a hydroelectric plant. The two reports disagree on mid-2025 progress, Le360 giving 38 per cent in June 2025 against about 30 per cent in Fes News. The conversion rate and its source are given in the budget note.