Spain smashed natural gas export record with France. Two interconnected streams connecting the two countries in April, Larrau for Irún and Navarra in the Basque Country, According to the operator of the Spanish gas system, it reached 6.52 terawatt-hours (TWh), enagas. Like this Maximum mark recorded in May 2022when sent via Pyrenees About 5.9 TWh of gas after the war in Ukraine and the fear of famine on the continent.
This time the record is driven by strikes called against Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform, which includes raising the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64. three quarters regasification terminals liquefied natural gas (LNG) companies, stops from the past Due to the March 9 strikeAs announced last week by the CEO of Enagás, Arturo Gonzalo Aizpiri to present at the conference with analysts first quarter results of the year
These strikes are decrease in domestic production gas and therefore, a more dependency on imports to satisfy national demand. In fact, from the beginning of the strike in the neighboring country to the present seven methane tankers bound for french terminals has been”diverted to Spanish facilities for regasification” and then shipment via gas pipeline according to Aizpiri.
In total, over the course of a year, the flow to France amounted to 9.8 TWh. According to the Enagás records, export balance began to take off to approach maximum capacity passing March 22. So from that moment and for the next ten days, Spain It shipped more gas to France via the pipeline than the pipeline from Algeria. In the accumulated flow of April, Almería interconnection was slightly higher (approximately 6.9 TWh) to the remaining amount from the Pyrenees.
And all this despite what happened irun compression station, In mid-February, this limited the pipeline’s capacity. However, from April 4 the maximum capacity of the interconnect was 225 gigawatt-hours (GWh)The current limit, before the possibility of sending gas via the Pyrenees, was increased to about 265 GWh per day in November last year. According to Enagás CEO, this figure will recover “in the coming days”. This average daily shipment During the month of April it was approx. 217 GWh.
Last year, the government Pedro Sanchez wanted to take advantage of the unborn MidCat pipeline to double the current capacity of natural gas flows between Spain and France to convert it to hydrogen in the future, but the Macron government’s refusal led to a bet on a pipeline. Called Priori, H2Med or BarMar, only hydrogen was carried.