This agreement between Madrid and Rabat occurs after Alger has decided not to renew the Maghreb Europe gas pipeline contract, on the background of long diplomatic voltages.
Le Monde with AFP
The Spanish Government announced, Thursday, February 3, that it would help Morocco to “guarantee its energy security” by allowing it to route gas through the Maghreb Europe gas pipeline, which Algeria n ‘feed more since the end of October.
“Morocco has requested support to guarantee its energy security on the basis of [our] commercial relations, and Spain responded favorably, as it would have done for any partner or any neighbor,” said The Spanish Ministry of the Ecological Transition in a statement. “Morocco can acquire liquefied natural gas (LNG) in international markets, have it delivered to a region of Peninsular Spain and use the Maghreb pipeline (GME) to route to its territory,” added The ministry, without giving more details on the calendar or volumes of gases concerned.
Solicited, the Moroccan Ministry of Energy did not want to provide details, including financial, on this agreement. According to the Moroccan website LE360, Morocco was in talks with Spain for several weeks to use the GNL terminals of the Spanish ports in order to route gas to Morocco via the GME.
This agreement between Madrid and Rabat occurs while Algeria has decided at the end of October not to renew the GME contract, which served Spain via Morocco, on the background of long diplomatic tensions with its neighbor. The two Maghreb countries oppose in particular on the thorny case of Western Sahara, vast desert territory controlled at 80% by flap, but claimed by the independence of the Polisario Front, supported by Algiers. These tensions led Algeria to break its diplomatic relations with Morocco at the end of August.
A LNG terminal project in Mohammedia
The decision of Algiers to close the GME tap has deprived Algerian gas flap, while, according to the experts, Morocco covered 97% of its needs by directly taking up gas transiting on its territory, as the right of way. , and by buying it at a preferential tariff to the Algerian Giant Sonatrach.
By helping Morocco to supply themselves in gas, Madrid makes a gesture towards Rabat when their bilateral relations are stretched since the reception by Spain, in April 2021, from the chief of the Polisario Front to get there to tend to. The major diplomatic crisis triggered had to culminate the arrival, mid-May, of nearly 10,000 migrants in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, thanks to a relaxation of the controls by the Moroccan authorities.
Rabat also signed an agreement with Sound Energy at the end of November for this British company to provide gas from a deposit that it operates in Tendrara, in eastern Morocco. Under this contract, Sound Energy undertakes to produce and deliver to the National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water (ONEE) up to 350 million cubic meters of LNG per year for ten years . This gas will transit by the Moroccan party of the GME.
Moroccan media reports the project to build a LNG terminal in the port of Mohammedia, near Casablanca. Spain continues to be gas supplied by Algeria, its first supplier, via the Medgaz underwater pipeline, which directly connects both countries and whose capacity will be increased to offset the transit stop. via the GME.