Pedro Sánchez agreed with Olaf Scholz to put all ‘his’ gas at his service, when the interconnections allow it. A commitment that he made before the European media and that made big headlines. A public pact that generated a doubt about this country’s gas ‘power’: Does Spain have, produce or can produce gas to fulfill this promise with Germany?
The latest data from the Strategic Reserves of Petroleum Products Corporation (Cores) reflect the level of self-supply of gas of 0.14% and this commitment depends on others. Cores records in its data the low production that remains in the last deposits of El Romeral (Seville), Viura (La Rioja) and Poseidon (Cádiz). In other words, Spain buys 99.86% from other countries in order to satisfy its internal demand.
And that dependency will rise to 100% when those deposits finish their last throes. Because in Spain no new exploration authorizations, hydrocarbon research permits or exploitation concessions will be granted. By the law that was approved on May 21, 2021. That day Article 9 of the Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition was establishedwhich was approved by the Government together with its partners and the abstention of the Popular Party.
As of the entry into force of this law, No new authorizations will be granted to carry out in the national territory, including the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf, any activity for the exploitation of hydrocarbons in which the use of high-volume hydraulic fracturing is planned.”, this article makes clear the Law 7/2021 on Climate Change. A year later, Europe is suffering from a shortage that may force its rationing and Spain, as promised to Germany, wants to become a great benchmark for natural gas for the rest of Europe.
Is there more gas in Spain?
The reports handled by the sector say yes. A study by Deloitte for ACIEP (Spanish Association of Hydrocarbon Research, Exploration and Production Companies) of 2014 ensured that the gas and oil reserves in Spain would open a production period of these resources of 24 years.
Their study is based on an estimation of prospective resources of 2,000 million barrels of oil equivalent and 2,500 bcm (million cubic meters of natural gas). Some figures that are also mentioned in the investigation Preliminary evaluation of the prospective resources of conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons in Spain of the consultancy Gessal and that also worked in this sense for the ACIEP.
Spain set out to search for gas and oil throughout its lands in the 1980s, while deploying a large network of combined gas cycles. An activity that has plummeted ever since. Some hope came in 2014 with the fever of ‘fracking’, the controversial technique to extract fossil fuels from the subsoil through the use of pressurized water.
An option that caught on in the United States and that had its chance in Europe. According to those who fought eight years ago for this alternative to be accepted, In 2014, Spain came to have permits for the basins of the entire territory. Permits left in limbo. Gas became the poor derivative of oil that no one wanted to risk their money to get.
The countries of North Africa, the Netherlands, Norway or Russia itself offered Europe to assume this risk to become suppliers of ‘luxury‘. The strategy of the main European economies is that renewables were going to move Europe in the medium term. A factor that was joined by environmentalist pressure on the Administration. A scenario that suffocated any option to activate fracking.
a good intermediary
The United States had no qualms about betting on the fracking industry. Thanks to this, the country went from needing to buy gas outside its borders for its internal consumption to becoming the largest exporter in the world. Spain is one of the countries that is now benefiting from the fact that the United States has said ‘yes’ to fracking. According to the same Cores reportAmerican gas is 29% of that consumed in Spain and its main supplier since Algeria closed one of its gas pipelines last November.
Spain now only aspires to become the best gas ‘intermediary’ in Europe to deal with the current crisis. Its strength lies in the six active regasifiers. To which it could add a seventh, if El Musel were reactivated in Gijón. These infrastructures make the country havea 34% of the regasification capacity in Europe. A capacity that converts the gas that comes in ships into energy that can be used to heat houses.
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