The Spanish Government calls on Brussels and Germany to pressure Macron to withdraw his refusal of another gas pipeline through the Pyrenees
Enagás and its Italian counterpart Snam finalize the study on the technical feasibility of transporting gas through an 800 km submarine tube from Barcelona to Livorno
Europe has embarked on a race to end its dependence on hydrocarbons from Russia. The continent trembles at the possibility of serious supply problems if the Kremlin decides to cut off the gas tap, and a new energy map that includes strengthening interconnections between member countries and in which Spain will have a leading role.
The European Commission and Germany, one of the countries that most depends on Russian gas, have shown their support for building a new gas pipeline between Spain and France to be able to transport gas that would end up in central and northern Europe. In practice, it means reviving the old MidCat project, which was closed three years ago because it was considered too expensive for the re-export needs of gas from Spain that existed at the time. But geopolitical and economic scenario now it is very different because of the pulse of Vladimir Putin.
But the project is running into the reluctance of France. Although there is no formal official response, the Government of Emmanuel Macron does not see the project as a priority as a solution to the current crisis and warns of its economic and environmental cost (at the same time that it does not fit due to the French strategic commitment to promote nuclear as a large industry national).
The Spanish government calls for the direct involvement of Germany and Brussels to put pressure on Paris and get the project off the ground, but given the possibility that France will not change its position, President Pedro Sánchez and several of his ministers have given wings to an alternative plan. “If plan A does not go ahead, we will have to look for plan B,” Sánchez warned this week. And plan B involves building an underwater gas pipeline between Spain and northern Italy, and from there supplying it to the rest of Europe.
The truth is that the project connect the Barcelona and Livorno gas plants by gas pipeline It was already listed as one of the alternatives in RePowerEU, the strategy promoted by the European Commission to shield itself against the threat of supply cuts from Russia, and also in the new Enagás strategic plan, which the manager of the Spanish gas system and of the gas pipeline network presented a little over a month ago. Although the Spanish Government prefers to give priority to the tube through France, as it is the simplest and cheapest option, the commitment to link Spain and Italy is taking shape.
Enagás and its Italian counterpart Snam finalize the project’s technical feasibility study, whose work began last May. In the absence of knowing the final details of the report, the initial estimates contemplate joint investments for about 3,000 million euros to build an underwater tube of about 800 kilometerswhich could be operational in 2028 and would be used to transport green hydrogen in 2039. The tube would have a capacity to transport 10,000 million cubic meters of gas (10 bcm) per year, with the possibility of raising it to 15,000, with which Spain would double or even triple its current export capacity per tube.
Three new gas pipelines?
Enagás’ new strategic plan until 2030 contemplates not only the construction of the gas pipeline with Italy -if it obtains the endorsement and financial support of the EU-, it also includes the interconnection with France in doubt due to the reluctance of the Gallic Government and another with Portugal. The large interconnection projects proposed by Enagás are part of the RePowerEU program promoted by Brussels to progressively reduce, until completely eliminating, Europe’s dependence on Russian gas.
This is a third interconnection with France, taking up the old MidCat project, with investments that the company would assume of 370 million; a third connection with Portugal, with a planned investment of 90 million; and the construction of a new underwater gas pipeline with Italy for 1,500 million, half of the total investment required.
The three new interconnection projects for Spain contemplated by Enagás, which concentrate a total investment of 1,980 million without including subsidies or possible non-recourse financing), are in the study and analysis phase and still have to be approved by the European Union, foreseeably in 2024 or 2025. “I am convinced that these infrastructures are going to be built. Europe needs them”, he stated Gonzalo Aizpiri, CEO of Enagáslast July.
The French option, as highlighted by the Government, is cheaper, technically simpler as it is not underwater, and also faster to activate. The vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, insists that the Spanish part of the MidCat (there are barely 200 kilometers left to take the tube from Hostalric, in Girona, to the French border) could be finished in eight or nine months and that the infrastructure was active for winter 2023-2024.
More export
According to figures from the Ministry for Ecological Transition, Spain is already re-exporting 20% of all the gas that reaches the country, either through the gas pipelines with France, using methane tankers or also in the form of electricity (since the electrical energy that is being sent to France to alleviate its problems due to the stoppage of its nuclear power plants is being produced in Spain using gas plants).
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Spain has the capacity to further increase the re-export of gas to Europe if necessary. According to the data handled by Enagás, the Spanish gas system can export 7 million cubic meters of gas (7 bcm) to the continent per year through the two gas pipelines with France and currently also has the capacity to send another 4 bcm by ship from the regasification plants.
But if you put the regasifiers At maximum performance, almost another 10 bcm can be added and the amount redirected to other European countries can rise to 20 bcm each year (approximately 13% of the volume of gas that Europe buys from Russia). In addition, in the coming months the Asturian El Musel plant, until now inactive, will be activated to use it as a logistics warehouse for re-export, which could increase the Spanish capacity to send gas to Europe by another 8 bcm.