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It was one of the last bridges between Algeria and Morocco and it is about to break. The Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline (GME), which since 1996 has linked the Algerian fields of Hassi-R’Mel in the Sahara to Europe via Morocco over a section of 540 kilometers, could soon cease to operate.
The transit contract between the two Maghreb neighbors expires on October 31. And if Algeria has not said it in clear terms, it seems determined to bypass the Shereefian kingdom to send its gas to the Old Continent.
During a meeting with the Spanish ambassador on Thursday August 26, just two days after the diplomatic break with Morocco announced by Algiers, the Algerian Minister of Energy and Mines, Mohamed Arkab, pledged “To cover all of Spain’s natural gas supplies through the Medgaz”, according to the official APS news agency.
In other words, Algiers will now concentrate the delivery of its natural gas to Spain on a single conduit, the one that directly connects Beni Saf, in western Algeria, to Almeria, in southern Spain.
A loss that would be severe for Morocco
While the gas pipeline passing through Morocco has a capacity of 13 billion m3 per year, the Medgaz, launched in 2011, only has an initial capacity of 8 billion m3. But it should be able to transport 10 billion m3 by the end of the year, the Algerian public oil and gas group Sonatrach announced in June. As Spain’s leading gas supplier in 2020, Algeria exported 9.6 billion m3 towards the Iberian Peninsula.
In May and June, speculation about a halt in contract negotiations by Moroccan King Mohammed VI was rife in the Spanish press, as Morocco and its European neighbor experienced a period of crisis linked to the question of Western Sahara and to the influx of Moroccan migrants to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.
Since then, Morocco has clarified its position by affirming its willingness to extend the GME contract. “It is our will, as we have expressed it verbally and in writing, publicly and in private discussions, always with the same clarity and the same consistency”, indicated, on August 19, Amina Benkhadra, director general of the Moroccan Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines.
The non-renewal of the GME contract, which appears as one of the only significant economic partnerships between the two Maghreb states, would “A fairly severe blow” to Morocco, decrypts Mourad Preure, specialist in energy issues and former executive of Sonatrach. ” The Morocco, he adds, benefits from rights of way and will lose between 800,000 million and one billion cubic meters of gas that it buys under good conditions from a source close to it. “
Algiers does not close the door to negotiations
Algerian gas allows the neighboring kingdom to partially supply two power plants and to benefit from transit costs estimated at just over $ 50 million in 2020, the figure varying according to Algerian gas exports.
Algiers, for its part, has not completely closed the door to negotiations and doubts about the future of the GME contract will persist until October 31. Asked during the press conference which followed the announcement of the severance of diplomatic relations with Morocco, Tuesday, August 24, the Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ramtane Lamamra, replied that“There are considerations which are subject to international treaties “And that the decision “Is the responsibility of the national company Sonatrach and its partners”.
“The Algerian foreign minister said it was a trade problem. He did not want, at his level, to politicize the sale of Algerian natural gas whether to the Spaniards, Moroccans or others ”, specifies a former senior Algerian official.