Spain stores a third of European gas, but the lack of connection with Europe makes supply difficult

Spain is the country with the most storage capacity for gas and regasification from Europe, a third of the total, although the lack of a sufficient pipeline connection with Europe limits your chances of being an alternative supply for the continent.

Just over a third (35%) of the capacity of liquefied natural gas storage (LNG) in the EU plus the United Kingdom is in Spain, according to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIP), the association of European gas infrastructure operators, which is made up of 67 companies belonging to 26 countries, including the United Kingdom.

Bahía Bizkaia Gas (BBG), in Bilbao, is one of the benchmark Liquefied Natural Gas regasification plants in the State gas sector.

After Spain (with a capacity of 3.31 million cubic meters), the United Kingdom is precisely located, which concentrates 22% of the LNG storage capacity (2.09 million); France (14% and 1.35 million), Belgium (6% and 0.56 million) and Italy (5% and 0.54 million).

Spain is also in the lead in regasification capacitythe process that is carried out in some plants where the LNG transported in methane tankers arrives in a liquid state.

The Liquefied Natural Gas regasification plant located in the Port of Bilbao received a total of 58 ships in 2020.

The gas, transported by ship at 160 degrees below zero in a liquid state, is unloaded at the plants and through a process the temperature is increased so that it passes into a gaseous state so that it can then be injected into gas pipelines for transportation.

Specifically, Spain has 27% of all regasification capacity in the EU plus the United Kingdom, which is also the second country with the most capacity (22%). France has 17%; Belgium, 8%, and Italy, 7%.

This high regasification and storage capacity allows Spain to face more calmly than its neighbours, at least in the security of supplythe current crisis triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This capacity also gave peace of mind about the security of gas supply when at the end of last year Algeria stopped sending gas through the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline, which crosses Morocco and through which part of the gas that Spain receives from Algeria arrived by pipeline.

The other route is the Medgaz gas pipeline, through which Algeria sends gas directly to the Peninsula and whose capacity has been increased. That expansion is about to become fully operational.

The manager of the Spanish gas system, Enagás, has four regasification plants, located in Barcelona, ​​Cartagena (Murcia), Huelva and Gijón (the latter pending definitive authorizations for its start-up).

In addition, it owns 50% of the Bahía Bizkaia Gas (BBG) plant, in Bilbao, and 72.5% of the Saggas terminal, in Sagunto (Valencia). The Reganosa company also operates the Mugardos LNG terminal in Ferrol (A Coruña).

As we can see on this map, most of the gas discharges in Bilbao come from Russia.

Thus, Spain could be, both due to its regasification and storage capacity and due to its connection with Algeria, an alternative route to the supply of Russian gas to the center of Europe. However, there is a bottleneck: the lack of connection beyond the Pyrenees with the central European gas system.