Doha – Spain has significantly increased its natural gas exports to Morocco over the past year, while simultaneously reducing gas supplies to European neighbors like Italy, according to a report from Spanish news outlet Vozpópuli.
Data from Cores, Spain’s oil reserves agency, shows that gas exports to Morocco now account for 18.5% of Spain’s total gas exports as of June 2024, up from just 0.1% in June 2022.
In the past 12 months, Spain sent 9,338 gigawatt-hours of natural gas to Morocco through the Maghreb-Europe pipeline, a 155-fold increase compared to a year earlier.
The surge in gas exports to Morocco comes as Algeria, previously a major gas supplier for both Morocco and Spain, shut down a key pipeline to Morocco in October 2021 amid diplomatic tensions.
To avoid an energy crisis, Morocco has turned to Spain to make use of its regasification infrastructure and import liquified natural gas (LNG) that can then be piped into Morocco.
Algeria had threatened to cut off its gas contract with Spain if any Algerian gas molecules ended up in Morocco.
As such, Spanish government officials have repeatedly assured Algeria that none of its gas supplies are being rerouted to Morocco. Officials maintain they have a special plan in place to prevent this, in order to preserve Madrid’s critical energy relationship with Algiers.
While increasing supplies to Morocco, Spain has reduced gas exports to Italy.
The pipeline between Barcelona and Livorno, which uses smaller LNG tankers, accounted for 18.4% of Spanish gas exports in 2023. However, by June 2024, this fell to just 4.4% according to Cores.
Italy, which was heavily impacted by cuts to Russian gas supplies, now has storage levels above 90% thanks to new agreements directly with Algeria.
Industry speculation suggests the decreased cooperation between Spain and Italy may also be due to strained relations between the two countries’ governments.
Spain continues to source 29.6% of its gas from Algeria, with another 19% still coming from Russia despite the supply disruptions, according to Cores data.
Read also: Spain Boosts Gas Exports to Morocco Amid Diplomatic Overtures
