Import Algerian gas by boat instead of doing it by gas pipeline will derive in an increase in the price of this hydrocarbon in the world’s energy crisis.
It is the first direct consequence of the recent closure of the infrastructure of the Maghreb that connected Spain with Algeria through Morocco.
According to calculations of the gas sector, the extra cost of each BCM (billion cubic meters of gas) that has to go from the tube to the ship to reach the Spanish coasts will be around 70 million euros.
For an estimate of three annual BCM, excluding the part of the gas that comes from Algeria but ends in Portugal, the invoice will exceed 200 million euros per year.
This figure does not affect the cost of energy, which revolves around the quotation of gas in the international market.
Its price in the main European places has multiplied by four in the last year and has opened a gap in the economic recovery of the continent after the pandemic.
In the case of the Spanish market MIBGAS, the cost of a megawatt hour has gone from dialing 13 euros on November 3, 2020 at 63 of yesterday.
Excluding the energy cost, sources of the sector explain that the transport of gas by ship is double expensive than by gas pipeline being much more complex at the operational level.
In the case of the tube, the cost of operating and maintaining the gas pipeline is one dollar per million BTU, amount that must be added the cost of introducing the merchandise in Spain from $ 0.2 per million.
In the case of metaneros vessels, the transportation of the same gas amount grows up to three dollars.
The most expensive part of the process refers to liquefaction, that is to convert the state of the gas hydrocarbon to liquid to move it into the maritime containers.
To that figure would then be added the transport itself, which depends on the distance and that in the Algerian case it would be 0.2 dollars per million BTU, the regasification once it reaches the Spanish ports and the toll for entering it in the system
Spanish gas
The question is who is going to pay that surchate nothing despicable in the price of gas.
Taking into account the prices that are currently making futures, the change of transport would be an increase in 14% for each BCM of gas transported.
The vice president of ecological transition, Teresa Ribera, has been limited to point out that the supply of Algerian gas to Spain is guaranteed in the current quantities and even if it had to be raised by the economic growth of the country.
Part of the gas that until three days ago, the Maghreb gas pipeline will be redirected through the ‘Brother’ Medgaz gas pipeline, which links Algeria directly with the coasts of Almería and whose capacity will be expanded to 10.7 BCM.
The gas that does not enter through that second tube will be sent through the boats.
Ribera trusts that with the extension, the level of gas that has to be imported by the metaneros is even less than the three BCMs that the sector estimates.
“From there are the companies themselves … Sonatrach, Naturgy, Enagás, Endesa, Repsol … Those who enter technical and price contracting”, is limited to pointing out the vice president to clear the thorny cost of the cost.
The problem for Spain is that in a market as stressed as gas due to the strong increase in global demand, the negotiating power has it the producer country.
This situation has led Spain this year received this year by thirty less ships than in the same period of the previous year, which has triggered its organized country from the African country to 47% just at the worst moment.
Boats that do not reach Spanish ports, mostly from countries such as Nigeria, USA or Tasting, ended up being redirected to Asia or Brazil, regions that demand a large amount of energy to propel its economic reactivation after the Covid crisis.
This is, furthermore, that countries like China have begun to take the coal from its productive model by replacing it by renewable and gas.
Ribera insisted yesterday that Spain has gas reserves for between 40 and 43 days, which would come to cover 20 episodes such as Philomena.
“The most tense episode that we have lived in recent years has been Filomena and consume the equivalent of two days, we have a very, very, very important reservation.”
