Algerian Gas Can’t Be Panacea for Europe’s Energy Needs, Report Warns

Algeria pipelines map - Sputnik International, 1920, 20.05.2022
Subscribe
Europe’s major economies began a new “scramble for Africa” in March, traveling to major oil and gas-producing nations in both North and Sub-Saharan Africa in search of oil and gas to replace supplies traditionally provided by Russia.
Algerian natural gas won’t be able to save Europe from its reliance on Russian supplies of the strategic resource, London-based Arabic-language digital newspaper Rai Al Youm has warned.
The outlet noted that while Algerian gas has become a source of hoped-for energy security for Spain, Italy, France, and even Germany, domestic factors and Algiers’ desire to remain on good terms with Moscow may prevent the country from becoming the energy panacea the Europeans are looking for.
Algeria, the largest exporter of gas in Africa, was the seventh largest in the world in 2020, and has at least 4.5 trillion cubic metres of proven gas reserves. A network of pipelines winds from massive fields in the centre and south of the country, taking the blue fuel to Iberia and the southern tip of the Italian "boot". The nation also has two large liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants in Arzew and Skikda along the Mediterranean coast, allowing LNG to be loaded up and delivered to other European destinations on board tankers.
However, Rai Al Youm points out that much of the country’s energy infrastructure is ageing, and rising domestic consumption is impeding the country from quickly ramping up output.
A number of European energy companies, including Italy’s Eni, France’s Total, Norway’s Equinor, and Germany’s Wintershall already operate in the gas-rich nation, cooperating with Algerian state-owned energy giant Sonatrach on a broad range of projects. Italy alone imported about 21 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas from Algeria in 2021, and has signed an agreement for an additional 9 bcm between 2023 and 2024 – equivalent to about 12 percent of Rome’s annual gas consumption. Wintershall has agreed a six-field contract expected to produce 2.8 bcm annually until 2041.
Europe’s plans to wean itself off Russian supplies has also prompted France and Spain to discuss reviving MidCat, an abandoned 190 km pipeline project that would pump Algerian natural gas across the Pyrenees to Barbaira in southern France. Proposed in 2003, the project was abandoned in 2019 after squabbling over costs and environmental impact considerations.
There are also geopolitical considerations at play. Last month, Algeria threatened to terminate gas exports to Spain if Madrid tried to resell it to other countries – pointing to Spain’s move to supply gas to Morocco, with whom Algiers is in a dispute over the region of Western Sahara. The Spanish government immediately backed down, vowing that “in no case will the gas acquired by Morocco come from Algeria”.
Kechba gas plant, Algeria - Sputnik International, 1920, 27.04.2022
Algeria Threatens to Terminate Contract for Gas Supplies to Spain
Morocco lost its access to natural gas supplies coming through a pipeline from Algeria in October 2021, after a 25-year gas distribution agreement expired. The kingdom annexed Western Sahara in 1976, with Algeria backing the Polisario Front independence movement in the region.
In this Feb. 27, 2021 file photo, Brahim Ghali, leader of the Polisario front, delivers a speech in a refugee camp near Tindouf, southern Algeria. Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Western Sahara independence movement at the heart of a diplomatic spat between Spain and Morocco, will appear before an investigating judge in Spain on June 1, 2021. Ghali, who has been recovering from COVID-19 in a Spanish hospital, faces a probe for possible genocide and a lawsuit for alleged tortures. - Sputnik International, 1920, 19.03.2022
Algeria Recalls Ambassador From Spain Over Western Sahara Issue
Russia Factor
Russia also won’t stand idly by as the Europeans seek to cosy up to Algeria for energy, Rai Al Youm suggested, pointing to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to the country earlier this month to mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
During his 10 May visit, Lavrov stressed the strong and friendly relations between Russia and Algeria, pointed to plans to strengthen economic, energy, and military cooperation, and to make good on the 2001 treaty aimed at scaling up strategic bilateral ties.
Algeria is Russia’s second-largest trade partner in Africa after Egypt, and the two nations have enjoyed close ties going back to Soviet days, when Moscow supported Algiers’ fight for independence from France, and sent aid to help rebuild the country’s economy and demine wide swathes of territory after it achieved independence in 1962.
Lavrov’s trip to Algeria was preceded by that of Antony Blinken, who travelled to the country in March, becoming the first US secretary of state to visit in 22 years. In his public remarks, Blinken was said to have discussed regional security, economic cooperation, and human rights with his Algerian counterparts, as well as dangled US technology exports before his hosts.
Behind the scenes, Rai Al Youm suggested, the visit may have constituted “American pressure on Algeria to increase gas supplies to Europe and to try to coopt the country into the ranks of the West”.
Ultimately, the outlet stressed that Algeria will not be able to “save” Europe or “rid it of its dependence on Russian gas”.

“Algeria is facing a difficult situation”, veteran German energy expert Cyril Widdershoven told German media last month, emphasising that if it seeks to help Europe with additional relations with Europe, Algiers will threaten its strategic ties with Moscow. On top of that, “it’s not clear to what extent Algeria can be an actual alternative to Russia, at a time when it is suffering from the stagnation of its oil exports due to a lack of investments in the sector, and the rapid growth of domestic demand”, Widdershoven said.

Dr Hussein Kadri, a professor of international relations at the University of Algiers, characterised the diplomatic commotion around the country amid the Ukraine crisis as a situation in which Algeria is “between a rock and a hard place”.
“Algeria can be an alternative, but at the same time it needs investment because its energy capabilities do not allow it to replace Russian gas over the short term”, Kadri said, speaking to Sky News Arabia.
The Algerian flag flies in the commune of Ouyoune El Assafir, Batna Province - Sputnik International, 1920, 13.10.2021
Algerian Police Arrest 17 From Kabyle Separatist Group Reportedly in Contact With ‘Zionist Entity’
Scramble for Africa
Algeria is one of several African energy powers the Europeans have engaged in recent months in a bid to find alternatives to Russian oil and gas. In March, European officials flocked to Nigeria to discuss a potential “strengthened partnership” in the energy sector with the country. Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported on the existence of an EU energy plan characterising Nigeria, Senegal, and Angola as nations with “largely untapped potential” for liquefied natural gas production.
Late last year, Nigerian Environment Minister Mohammad Mahmood Abubakar accused developed nations of deliberately defunding Africa’s natural gas projects on the grounds that they contribute to the global climate crisis.
An unidentified Shell worker aboard the  Bonga offshore oil vessel off the coast of Nigeria, file photo. - Sputnik International, 1920, 18.04.2022
Africa
Back to Africa: Europe Ramps Up Search for Alternatives to Russian Gas South of the Mediterranean
The European Investment Bank stopped financing African fossil fuel projects in late 2021. The same year, the Western-dominated World Bank said it too would shift resources away from natural gas projects in favour of initiatives that would help in “combating climate change”.

Energy Suicide

European countries have spent months promising to reduce energy imports from Russia, with the European Commission recently proposing an embargo on Russian oil in a proposed sixth package of sanctions. Hungary blocked the initiative, saying a ban on Russian oil would be equivalent to dropping an "atomic bomb" on the country's economy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on these measures on Tuesday, saying that if the European Union wanted to commit economic suicide, it was its business.
“Obviously, together with Russian energy resources, economic activity will also be leaving Europe for other regions of the world. Such an economic auto-da-fe, or suicide, is of course the internal affair of European countries. We must proceed pragmatically and proceed primarily from our own economic interests”, Putin said.
Pipeline taps are pictured near a chemical plant in Wesseling, near Cologne, Germany, Wednesday, April 6, 2022 - Sputnik International, 1920, 17.05.2022
Russia
EU Introducing 'Suicidal' Sanctions on Russian Oil and Gas Under Pressure From US Overlords: Putin
Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала