Algerian Natural Gas Saves Spain From Historic Cold Wave

The National hydrocarbons Company, Sonatrach, doubled its gas supplies to Spain, and the gas pipeline filling rate reached its peak due to the unprecedented cold wave that struck the Kingdom of Spain, as it greatly increased the demand for this vital product, and its prices rose locally to record levels.

In the context, the Spanish newspaper specializing in energy, “El Periodico de la Energia”, stated that Algeria has returned to pump gas to Spain at maximum capacity, after the pumping operations had known some problems in increasing capacity at the beginning of the cold wave, noting that Algeria is currently pumping 1.6 million Cubic meters of gas to Spain every hour.

The historical cold wave that hit Spain for a while and is expected to continue in the coming days, led to a significant rise in the demand for natural gas and jumped in prices to reach 60 euros per megawatt hour, amid a scarcity of gas throughout Spain, and the source indicated that Algeria, after it returned to pump more gas, and this led to further quantities of natural gas Gas prices falling on the Spanish market and stabilized at 45 euros per megawatt hour.

According to the same newspaper, Sonatrach is currently pumping 1.6 million cubic meters of natural gas to Spain every hour, which means that the rate of pumping reaches 38.4 million cubic meters within 24 hours, which means that if the current pace of pumping continues, the exported quantities will reach in one month, about 1.15 billion cubic meters.

The Spanish newspaper specialized in energy affairs pointed out that after Algeria increased the quantities of natural gas that are pumped to Spain, the “Enagas” company took precautionary measures and liberated part of the underground storage capacity in separate regions of Spain.

The newspaper described the situation in Spain as embarrassing given that the current biting cold wave is widely expected to last for other days.

The unprecedented cold winter that has characterized Europe since last December is expected to have a significant impact on Sonatrach’s gas sales to the old continent, after it declined by 22 percent last year, according to the Ministry of Energy, due to Europe’s warm winter, provided that Sonatrach can produce at maximum capacity.

Sonatrach, it said, is quite able to cover the domestic demand in natural gas on the one hand, and the European demand especially in this very cold winter on the other hand.