Spain is the country with the most gas storage capacity and regasification in Europe, a third of the total, although the lack of interconnections with the rest of the continent greatly limits its possibilities of being a supply alternative.
Just over a third (35%) of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage capacity in the EU plus the UK is in Spain, according to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIP), the association of European infrastructure operators of gas, which is made up of 67 companies belonging to 26 countries, including the United Kingdom.
After Spain (with a capacity of 3.31 million cubic metres), the United Kingdom is precisely, which concentrates 22% of the LNG storage capacity (2.09 million); France (14% and 1.35 million), Belgium (6% and 0.56 million) and Italy (5% and 0.54 million).
Spain is also at the forefront in regasification capacitythe process that is carried out in some plants where the LNG transported in methane tankers arrives in a liquid state.
The gas, transported by ship at 160 degrees below zero in a liquid state, it is discharged in the plants and through a process the temperature is increased so that it passes into a gaseous state so that it can then be injected into gas pipelines for transport.
Specific, Spain has 27% of all the regasification capacity of the EU plus the United Kingdom, which is also the second country with the most capacity (22%). France has 17%; Belgium, 8%, and Italy, 7%.
Spain’s regasification capacity is 1,910.40 gigawatt hours (GWh) per day; that of the United Kingdom, of 1,565; that of France, of 1,252.70; that of Belgium, 541, and that of Italy, 514.50.
This high regasification and storage capacity allows Spain to deal more calmly than its neighbours, at least in terms of security of supply, the current crisis triggered by Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This capacity also gave peace of mind about the security of gas supply when at the end of last year Algeria stopped sending gas through the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline, which crosses Morocco and through which part of the gas that Spain receives from Algeria arrived by pipeline.
The other route is the Medgaz pipeline, through which Algeria sends gas directly to the Peninsula and whose capacity has been increased. That extension is about to become fully operational.
the bottlenecks
Thus, Spain could be, both due to its regasification and storage capacity and due to its connection with Algeria, an alternative route to the supply of Russian gas to central Europe. However, there is a bottleneck: the lack of connection beyond the Pyrenees with the central European gas system.
The manager of the Spanish gas system, Enagás, has four regasification plants, located in Barcelona, Cartagena (Murcia), Huelva and Gijón (the latter pending definitive authorizations for its start-up).
In addition, it owns 50% of the Bahía Bizkaia Gas (BBG) plant in Bilbao and 72.5% of the Saggas terminal in Sagunto (Valencia). The Reganosa company also operates the Mugardos LNG terminal in Ferrol (A Coruña).
Howeverthe lack of a sufficient pipeline connection with Europe limits the supply that could go to the continent.
Pick up the Midcat project
For this reason, in recent weeks there have been many voices asking for the construction of the Midcat gas pipeline, the project for a new gas interconnection with France that stalled over objections from Spanish and French regulators.
Currently, Spain only has two interconnections with France, through Larrau (Navarra) and Irún (Guipúzcoa), which allow the delivery of about 8 bcm per year (8,000 million cubic meters) of gas, while with Midcat it could reach 17 bcm .
The Catalan employers Foment del Treball has requested by letter to the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, the urgent reactivation of its construction. In addition, the PdeCat has presented a parliamentary initiative for the Congress of Deputies to urge the Executive to reactivate the project.
According to Foment estimates, the construction of this infrastructure would entail an economic outlay of 500 million euros, compared to the 700 million paid each day by Europe to Russia for the purchase of gas.
What’s more, they consider that this gas pipeline can turn Spain into a great gas ‘hub’ in southern Europe and provide more energy autonomy to the continentsince Spain could supply gas that arrives in Spain from countries such as Algeria, the United States, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, among others.
Sánchez has shown this week that he is willing to study that connection, although he has said that the pipeline should serve to transport green hydrogen to Europe, in addition to gas.
The project to build Midcat was agreed in 2013 by the governments of Spain, France and Portugal, but was halted after the Spanish and French regulators (CNMC and CRE) considered in 2019 that it did not meet the needs of the market, although there were also problems about the distribution of costs between countries.