Algeria Halts Gas Pipeline to Spain Amid Diplomatic Tensions with Morocco

For Algeria, the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline through which Spain is supplied with natural gas would be "definitively closed," says a reliable source to the newspaper Liberté. According to the same source, Algiers will not renew the contract that expires on October 31. There is "nothing more to negotiate on this file," it adds.

The end of the Maghreb-Europe (GME) gas pipeline comes in a context marked by the rupture by Algiers of its diplomatic relations with Rabat. Before the Algerian decision, Morocco had announced that it would not block the GME file. "This is our will, as we have expressed it verbally and in writing, publicly and in private discussions, always with the same clarity and consistency," said Amina Benkhadra, director of the National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines (ONHYM).

For its part, Algeria, which feared the non-renewal of the contract by Rabat, had taken certain measures. In July, the president of the Algerian national energy company (Sonatrach), Tewfik Hakkar, and the president of the Spanish company Naturgy officially formalized the agreement for the commissioning of the extension of Medgaz, the submarine gas pipeline between Algeria and Spain. In addition, during a meeting between Mohamed Arkab, the Algerian Minister of Energy, and his Spanish counterpart Fernando Moran, at the end of August, the Algerian official reassured his host of "Algeria’s total commitment to cover all of Spain’s natural gas supplies through Medgaz".