Geopolitical Calculations Threaten Algerian Gas Exports To Europe

After nearly three decades of Algerian gas dominating the needs of Spain, a surprising and remarkable development occurred, in which the United States of America leapt to the fore, occupying the first position in terms of gas exports to this country, which is the first customer to Algeria in decades.

The latest developments in this field indicate that the United States of America has become the first in terms of gas exports to Spain causing Algeria’s shift from the first rank, as the Spanish company “Cores” concerned with the management of fuel reserves revealed that the US Gas Exports to Spain reach 27% in February 2020, which means that Algeria has become second in terms of gas exports to this country, and the same source has estimated it at 22.6% of Spain’s gas needs.

For three decades, Algeria has remained the main supplier of gas to Spain, an equation that has changed since the USA switched from a gas consumer to an exporter, due to the boom in this country in terms of shale gas and oil production.

The Spanish company responsible for managing fuel reserves instructs this development to the policy that the new government has embarked upon since it came to power in 2018, as it diversified its exports of gas and oil and bought a significant quantity of American and Venezuelan oil in the context of diversifying energy sources, as mentioned by Cores Company, which confirmed that Spain imported 1.82 million tons of Venezuelan oil in one year, while its purchase of American oil increased by 58 or 1.4 million tons per year.

This policy was not specific to Spain alone. Rather, it is considered a direct approach by the European Union to meet its interest with Spain, which seeks to make the Iberian Peninsula a narrow transfer of fuels of both kinds from its various sources and transfer to the rest of European countries, in the hope of obtaining concessions, which is the desire that Madrid has demonstrated from during its acquisition of American oil and gas, and Venezuelan oil as well.

Observers attribute this trend to the intersection of interest between the countries of the European Union and the United States of America, driven by the desire to reduce dependency on Russian gas coming from the east, which the strategists in Brussels consider as a pressure card in Moscow’s hands for imposing certain agendas on European countries.

It is known that Spain has two pipelines of Algerian gas connected to it, the first is Medgaz and connects the Algerian mainland to the Spanish directly, from the port of Bani Saf towards Almeria and the Sonatrach company controls most of its shares, and the second connects Algeria to Spain via the Moroccan mainland, which is less important, and it is said that Algeria may stop exploiting it soon.

Previously, American newspapers have talked about a promise made by the President of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, with US President Donald Trump that there is a desire by the European Union to raise the proportion of European countries’ imports of US liquefied gas to a level that makes them major importers of American gas and the Russian President Vladimir Putin did not look at it with satisfaction, which led him to threaten to raise the price card in the face of US gas.