The government is preparing to open an Enagas regasification plant in El Musel (Gijon), which was built more than a decade ago and which never opened. The idea is to use infrastructure as a gas storage facility for the EU in the context of an extremely serious energy crisis triggered by the Ukraine war and the EU’s plan to rid Russia of gas. The decision awaits the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) to approve a specific model of factory remuneration.
As Third Vice President and Environment Minister Teresa Ribera explained to elDiario.es, “Enagas has offered to use the facility as an offshore storage and supply facility. To have significant logistics capacity, which will give more flexibility to the system. ”
And the plan will be implemented: “Soon, if it has not already been, it will be this week or in a few days,” Enagás intends to send a compensation offer to the CNMC, “so that if he gives his approval, he can enter the tests and put this new one into effect “By profession in the coming months,” Ribera said.
The idea is that the infrastructure, which will be the seventh of its kind in operation in Spain, can function, unlike the rest, independently of the Spanish gas system.
It will do so as a major repository to accelerate the transit of methane tankers to the rest of Europe to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the rest of the continent in a European context. The stored gas will be destined for other regasification plants in third EU countries that do not have the flexibility of the Spanish system, which is the strongest on the continent.
The idea, as sector sources explain, is similar to an offer from Italy, which wants to set up a system of transport boats from Italy to Barcelona to set up a regasification plant in the Catalan capital, Europe. Serves to store gas to be shipped to Italy, then to transport raw materials from there to northern Europe via a gas pipeline.
Musel has two tanks with a capacity of 150,000 cubic meters. According to industry estimates, it is enough to get liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is equivalent to one hundred ships a year, allowing about 10 bcm (billion cubic meters of gas) to be unloaded in Spain and then charged in various ways. Scores in Europe.Annual.
This 10 billion cm (less than a third of Spain’s annual consumption) is a very significant amount. They are equivalent to 10% of the planned Russian gas this year. Until now, Russia has covered 40% of the EU’s consumption: about 150 billion cm / yr, which European partners have suggested reducing this year to around 100 billion cm / yr after the start of the war if Russian supplies are cut off altogether. Before the invasion of Ukraine. The EU plan envisages a complete shutdown of Russian gas by 2030.
The idea is that when the El Musel plant starts operating in a few months (in the best case scenario, at the end of this year), the plant’s remuneration will not increase Spanish consumers’s gas bill. They have already paid for the largest network of regasification plants in Europe, a luxury that has been underutilized in recent years (because they were no longer needed) and which has become a major factor in this energy crisis.
In the words of the third vice-president, “Today we seem to envy Europe, but it must be said that for a long time we have been paying much more than other European gas consumers because there. There was no such significant need for these regasification plants. ”
Thus, following fiascoes such as the Castor gas depot built by ACS, Spanish consumers paid the highest increase in gas taxes in Europe in 2009-2019, according to a report by European regulator Acer. One of the latest developments in the sector was the signing of the popular Jaime Garcia-Legaz as director of Nortegas, the second largest gas distributor in Spain.
The installation of El Musel envisages an annual technical cost of 25-27 million euros per year. The cost of this new use will be similar, so sector sources assure that this will not lead to an increase in costs for consumers. And the plant will have revenue for the gas system from the ships that stop for unloading and reloading.
The capacity of El Musel exceeds the interconnection between Spain and France through two existing gas pipelines, which is about 8 billion cubic meters. A project known as the Midcat (via the Catalan Pyrenees) will increase this figure to 17 billion cubic meters if this infrastructure (built years ago and brought back to the forefront of this energy crisis) is completed. The government is ready to make Midcat a reality, provided it is funded by the European Union. The change of position coincided with tensions with Algeria, Spain’s main gas supplier, over the return of Pedro Sanchez to the Sahara.
This Wednesday, the president of the General Assembly, Pere Aragonés, asked the European Commission to place a “bet” on the Midcat project and declare the project “absolutely necessary” for the public to receive community funding for its funding.
Aragon added that the pipeline “aims to ensure gas supplies throughout Europe”. In the same act in Barcelona, the president of Enagas, Anthony Larden, promised to “send concrete plans” to the European Commission and governments as soon as possible to see how gas supplies to Europe could be strengthened, Europa reports. Click.
An important phase of this plan was passed on to El Musel. This regasification plant was built on the basis of a government-mandated plan. But then it was not used due to legal problems and lack of demand, which forced it to go into hibernation ten years ago. A year ago, and in a context radically different from the current one, the CNMC itself warned European regulator ACER of its doubts about the project’s reactivation, but said it “welcomes experimental projects on decarbonized gases.” .
Apparently, this was the future of Muselle, who, after investing almost 380 million euros, never opened it by order of the administration, which decided on its winter in 2012.
The factory, located in the port of Gijon, the expansion of which was the protagonist of a corruption scandal at the expense of millionaires, was evaluated and authorized in 2008. The installation was overturned by the Madrid High Court of Justice in 2013, a decision upheld in 2016 by the Supreme Court. The start-up of the plant received the Environmental Impact Statement (DIA) from the Environmental Transition Organization a year ago.
Source: El Diario
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