Spain, an alternative bridgehead for the EU gas supply?

“Spain can and must play an important role in supplying Europe with energy,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen insisted on Saturday during a meeting in Madrid with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro. Sanchez.

Spain has six gas terminals for regasifying and storing liquefied natural gas (LNG) transported by sea.

This network is the largest in Europe.

The country also has a direct supply of pressurized gas, thanks to a 750 km long submarine gas pipeline linking Algeria to the Andalusian coasts (south of the country): Medgaz, with a capacity of ten billion cubic meters per year.

A second pipeline of equivalent capacity connects Spain to Algeria via Morocco: the GME (Gaz Maghreb Europe).

Its operation was suspended in early November by Algiers against the backdrop of the diplomatic crisis with Rabat, but it has not been dismantled.

"Part of the solution"

This position makes Spain a separate state within the EU.

"The country has a supply capacity that is both large and diversified" and "depends very little on Russian gas", underlines Thierry Bros, professor at Sciences Po Paris and specialist in the sector.

According to "Gas Infrastructure Europe" (GIE), an association bringing together European gas infrastructure operators, a third of the regasification capacity of the EU and the United Kingdom is located in the Iberian Peninsula.

The gas pipeline network in Europe Patricio ARANA AFP

A situation that the Spanish government wants to use for the benefit of the EU.

“It would make sense” that this capacity “could benefit our neighbors”, in order to “secure their supply”, underlined Tuesday the Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera.

According to Gonzalo Escribano, a researcher at the Elcano Institute in Madrid, Spain and Portugal, together in the "Iberian gas market", have a monthly import capacity of 40 terawatt/hour (TWh).

However, these two countries generally consume less than 30 TWh.

"This means that we could export at least 10 TWh per month, not counting the additional capacities linked to the GME. This is not negligible", explains this energy market specialist, for whom Spain can be "part of the solution" to the problem of the EU's dependence on Russian gas.

The fact remains that the infrastructures allowing the export of such quantities of gas do not exist, Spain currently only having two connections with the French gas pipelines, at Irún (Basque Country) and Larrau (Navarre).

However, these pipelines have only a low delivery capacity.

"We don't rewrite history"

To fill this gap, a pipeline project was launched in 2013 between Catalonia (north-eastern Spain) and south-eastern France.

But this gas pipeline, called MidCat, was abandoned in 2019 for lack of agreement on its financing and real support from France, unconvinced of its usefulness.

A viability study commissioned by the European Commission had, in fact, concluded in 2018 that this infrastructure, with an estimated cost of more than 440 million euros, would be neither profitable nor necessary, Europe already having several terminals. of regasification little used.

Could this project be relaunched in view of the new international context?

The Spanish Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, said she was in favor of it on Monday, while insisting that this interconnection should also concern the transport of "green hydrogen".

"We must work on the interconnections. This is one of our priorities," said Ms. von der Leyen on Saturday.

A message also relayed by the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Augusto Santos Silva, in favor of the creation of an additional gas pipeline between Spain and France.

Experts are more reserved.

For Gonzalo Escribano, "the context has changed" and could justify "putting the project back on track".

But "even if we issue a permit now, the work will last for years, while the needs concern next winter," he warns.

"A project like this requires at least four or five years of work, it's not a short-term solution", agrees Thierry Bros, skeptical of the usefulness of such an infrastructure, especially since " Algeria's ability to supplement the Russian supply is limited".

“We are not rewriting history”, insists the researcher, who considers it necessary to find solutions “more adapted” to the situation.

"The country that needs gas the most is Germany: it would therefore be more useful to have gas terminals there than a pipe between France and Spain".

© 2022 AFP