The Iberian Peninsula is outside the scope of the effects of the lack of Russian gas: Both Spain and Portugal have alternative sources of supply to the rest of Europe, constituting an “energy island”. They are supplied with natural gas from Algeria through two gas pipelines, one passing through Morocco and that is currently out of service for diplomatic reasons (the Maghreb–Europe Gas Pipeline- MEG), the other direct between Beni Saf (Algeria) and Almería (Spain): the Medgaz. And they are also increasingly supplied with liquefied gas.
The relevant point is precisely in the infrastructure that has managed to develop Spain to receive liquefied gas: there are currently 6 regasification plants in Spanish territory, being the European country with the largest number of liquefied gas treatment plants (there are 32 throughout Europe). This capacity allows it today to have the lowest gas price on the continent and project itself as an alternative supply hub to Russian gas.
Here the largest supplier of liquefied gas to Spain: USAa country that hopes this year to become the largest exporter of LNG in the world, above Australia Y Tasteand has now been transformed -and due to the closure of the MEG- in the main supplier of all the gas imported by the Spanish government.
Surely we didn’t have USA on the gas radar in the world, but thanks to the evolution of fracking technology and the large shale gas reserves they hold, they have achieved the status of a major player in the energy market. Washington has recently achieved energy autonomy and now dominates the supply of LNG to Europe, having displaced the continent’s traditional gas suppliers: the aforementioned Qatar, Russia, Nigeria and Algeria. His numbers promise to maintain this recent leadership for several years to come.
United States LNG
Photo: Sempra
Returning to Europe, clearly the war has made the entire continent pay much more attention to the methane tankers that are sailing the world’s waters and, in this scenario, Spain has the great advantage of an already armed infrastructure that would allow it to store a third of the gas needs of European countries. So much so that there is a project for a gas pipeline to France crossing the eastern Pyrenees that had been discarded by Paris at the time and that now circumstances have dusted it off, returning to the folder: it is the MidCat, that would connect the north of Catalonia with Occitania, southern France and would allow Spain to double its transport capacity.
Than What impact can the gas and LNG situation have on Argentina?
Undoubtedly in the current status quo the scenario is particularly unfavorable, hand in hand with the increase in the price of LNG globally due to the greater demand from Europe. Now, we can also think of it as an opportunity (a great opportunity) in the medium term if the Infrastructure works necessary to transport all the shale gas that can potentially be extracted from Vaca Muerta and if it is complemented with a structure of liquefaction plants that instead of receiving full methane tankers do just the opposite: that they fill them here to be unloaded in foreign ports.
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This promising alternative would not only assure us of our own supply, but would also generate a positive balance of foreign exchange for several years that, in the best of cases and without going out of business, It would allow our country to invest in the energy transformation that will lead us to the development of renewable energies such as green hydrogen, wind and solar.
And the Spanish regasification plants will be waiting there to inject Vaca Muerta gas into the European interconnected system, transported by MidCat to France and from there to the rest of the continent.
The setting is propitious. The natural resources are The technology exists and is highly viable – as the United States demonstrates. What are we waiting for to get on the last wave of fossil fuels in the world?
Analyst of International Economic Relations, Technology and Geopolitics. Author of “5G, The Technological War of the Century”. On Twitter, @G_Balbo
Source: Ambito
