Spain, France and Portugal agree on gasoline pipeline hyperlink

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez mentioned Spain, France and Portugal had agreed Thursday to construct an vitality pipeline linking the Iberian peninsula to the remainder of Europe, reviving a challenge long-resisted by Paris.

The brand new challenge, which Sanchez dubbed a Inexperienced Power Hall, would substitute an earlier plan dubbed MidCat that emerged a decade in the past however was dropped in 2019 over regulatory and funding points.

However, with Russia withholding gasoline deliveries to most of Europe in response to sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine, there was a resurgence of curiosity in a hyperlink to usher in much-needed provides from Spain to the remainder of the continent.

With vitality costs hovering, Madrid pushed laborious for the revival of the challenge, with the complete backing of Berlin, which has seen Russian gasoline deliveries by way of a key pipeline shut off for the indefinite future.

“We now have agreed to… a brand new challenge to be known as the Inexperienced Power Hall to hyperlink the Iberian peninsula to France and subsequently to the European vitality market between Barcelona and Marseille,” Sanchez defined on his arrival for an EU summit on the vitality disaster.

Sanchez mentioned that the pipeline would transfer hydrogen and gasoline “throughout a transition interval wanted by the European vitality market.”

Spain presently has six liquefied pure gasoline (LNG) terminals for processing gasoline that arrives by sea which might assist the EU enhance imports with a greater hyperlink.

But it surely solely has two low-capacity hyperlinks to France’s gasoline community, which has connections to the remainder of Europe.