Despite the war, Spain continues to buy gas from Russia, and these imports, far from softening the purchases, are increasing day by day. In fact, the weight of Russian gas arriving on the Spanish market so far this year is getting stronger and Russia has already positioned itself as the country’s third-largest supplier. only behind Algeria and the United States, which confirmed that it has regained its position as the largest supplier.
In January and February of this year, just one year after the start of the military invasion of Ukraine at the behest of the Kremlin, purchases of Russian gas by Spanish energy companies reached 11,837 gigawatt hours (GWh), almost tripling the volume recorded in the same months. Last year (+172%), according to the records of Enagás, operator of the Spanish gas system.
The European Union has launched several sanctions packages against Russia to financially suppress the Vladimir Putin Government and cut off the financing channels for the war in Ukraine. Among the many punitive measures, the blockade of Russian gas purchases is not included for the time being. And after a year of war, Spain becomes a major buyer of Russian gas by ship for later re-export to other countries.
From February of last year, when the military occupation of Ukraine began, to the end of this February, Russian gas imports from Spanish energy companies rose almost 68%, exceeded 63,460 GWh compared to 37,700 GWh in the previous thirteen months.
The energy sector points to different circumstances explaining the steady increase in purchases from Russia over the past year. Imports are responding to long-term contracts, which in most cases were signed long before the invasion and could not be broken without exposing themselves to million-dollar sanctions, companies justify this, and some of the increase in arrivals corresponds to the intended diversion of methane tankers. especially to other European countries that had to look for other destinations due to the problems experienced in the European factories in the last summer.
In parallel, with a significant part of the natural gas pipeline network between Russia and Europe at a standstill, Spain has become a priority destination for the transport of Russian gas by ship, thanks to its huge park of regasification plants (concentrating one-third of all capacity). EU), then to sell to other countries. according to the records of Strategic Reserves Corporation (Cores), Gas re-exports from Spain exceeded 72,000 GWh every twelve months a very strong increase of almost 92% in just one year.
The Spanish government has repeatedly made public its preference for energy companies to reduce their purchases of Russian gas, but assumes that companies can continue to buy Russian gas, as the European Union has not taken a coordinated decision to veto its imports.
Algeria is once again the top selling country
Russia has overtaken Nigeria so far this year and becomes the third largest gas supplier to the Spanish market, with a share of around 18% of total imports. Algeria confirmed that it regained its position as the largest gas supplier in Spain (with a share of 24.2% until February) in the first two months of the year. last year the USA (with 21.7% of total purchases in these two months) had to settle in second place.
In the midst of the energy crisis and spiraling up energy prices, Algeria’s decision to shut down the largest gas pipeline to Spain in October 2021 caused a reversal of the country’s import structure. The closure of the Strait submarine tube forced Spain to rapidly increase the weight of its ship-bound gas purchases and upset the ranking of supplying countries. Algeria lost its historic position as the largest gas supplier in January 2022 and was overtaken by the United States, which remained the largest supplier for a year until January 2023.