Spain: Russia overtakes Algeria to become #2 natural gas supplier

Russia replaced Algeria as Spain’s second-largest natural gas supplier in June after flows from the North African country fell amid a diplomatic row, according to Bloomberg.

Imports from Russia totaled 8,752 gigawatt hours in June, more than doubling imports from May and accounting for 24% of Spain’s total demand, according to gas grid operator Enagas SA. Deliveries from Algeria fell to 7,763 gigawatt hours from 9,094 gigawatt hours in May, about halfway through June 2021 and now account for 22% of demand. The US remains the largest supplier, with a 30% share.

The cut in gas flows from Algeria, historically Spain’s biggest supplier, comes after a diplomatic row between the two countries following Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s decision to back Morocco in a dispute over Western Sahara. While this has increased Spain’s exposure to geopolitical tensions stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the share of imports coming from Russia is still much smaller than for some other European countries.

Last month, natural gas began flowing from Spain to Morocco via the Maghreb–Europe pipeline, a link that normally sent fuel in the opposite direction and which Algeria cut last year. Algeria has said that the gas it sends to Spain through another pipeline cannot be re-exported to Morocco.

Spain also continues to rely more on liquefied natural gas (LNG), which in June accounted for almost 77% of natural gas imports, an increase of 29 percentage points from the same month in 2021. While Algerian natural gas is sent to Spain mainly by pipeline, with LNG accounting for only a small part, Russian supplies are all in LNG.