Spain Urges Algeria to Maintain Gas Pipeline Amid Diplomatic Tensions

"We have asked Algeria to continue the maintenance tasks of the gas pipeline that passes through Morocco, because we hope that it can at some point resume operation," the Spanish Minister of Energy Transition, Teresa Ribera, recently told the newspaper Le Monde.

According to many observers, the suspension of the cooperation treaty between Spain and Algeria has had a real negative impact on Algerian companies. The Spanish government had in this sense publicly accused Algeria of blocking almost all bilateral trade.

Madrid said it was observing "a virtually total paralysis of foreign trade operations with Algeria, both imports and exports, with the exception of energy products".

Recently, the state hydrocarbon group Sonatrach announced that it had signed a contract with the Spanish company Naturgy to increase the prices of the gas it supplies to it, in a context of energy crisis linked to the war in Ukraine.