Pak Sahafat – Algeria, one of the main suppliers of gas to Europe (after Russia), which had previously warned that any change in the destination of gas exports to Spain would lead to the termination of the gas export contract, reduced its gas supplies to the country by 25%, and this is while Europe is going through unfavorable fuel conditions.
According to Pak Sahafat News Agency, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jose Manuel Albars, announced in October 2021 that Algeria has pledged to supply the country with the gas it needs, but it seems that, as French media have reported, Madrid’s support for the Polisario Front will gradually lead to Algeria’s economic war against Spain.
Earlier Algerian Minister of Energy and Mines Mohamed Arqab stating that his country would no longer send its natural gas to Spain via the Maghreb via the Meg pipeline said that all Algerian gas exports are delivered directly to the Spanish market via Madgaz communication with a capacity of 8 billion cubic meters per year. This pipeline sends gas directly from Algeria to Spain.
Eight months after the deal, Radio France Internationale reported that Algeria had reduced its gas supplies to Spain by about a quarter last week.
Al Jazeera had warned Madrid that it would terminate the agreement if Spain transferred the shipments “to a third destination not included in the agreement”.
Algerian television quoted the country’s energy ministry as saying that any reversal in the destination of Algerian gas exports to Spain could lead to the termination of the contract between the Algerian national energy company Sonatrak and the Spanish side.
Algeria’s energy company on April 2 considered the possibility of “reviewing” the price of gas exports to Spain in the context of diplomatic tensions between Algeria and Madrid over the issue of the Western Sahara.
The news of the reduction of gas supplies from Algeria to Spain is announced by the country’s media, while Algeria, as the second largest supplier of gas to Europe, has remained silent on this issue.
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By the end of March, Algeria had initially rejected a US request to resume its gas pipeline to Spain. During Wendy Sherman’s visit to Rabat, Madrid and Algeria, Washington called for the resumption of the pipeline.
Following recent Algerian tensions with Rabat in December last year, Algerian officials recently closed the gas pipeline that runs through the West.
In the wake of the Ukraine crisis and US sanctions against Russia, the United States is seeking to help its European allies replace gas imports from Russia, but Algeria, which accounts for 11 percent of European gas imports, now wants to increase gas exports to Russia.
Meanwhile, gas exports from the pipeline were cut off last October 31 following Algeria’s refusal to extend its FEMA contract with Morocco due to political tensions.
In its latest report, Radio France Internationale reports that Madrid’s support for the Polisario Front and the independence of the Western Sahara is gradually leading to an unannounced economic war waged by Algeria against Spain.
The Western Sahara is a region in northwestern Africa and southern Morocco controlled by the Polisario Liberation Front and the Kingdom of Morocco.
The inhabitants of the Western Sahara region are generally of Arab descent. When Spain left the Western Sahara, it had a population of 750,000, but now has a population of less than 300,000. A large part of its population migrated to neighboring countries during the Polisario War.
Since 1976, the Polisario Front has established a state called the Arab Democratic Republic of the Sahara in the former Spanish colony. Currently, the Sahara Republic controls only 20 to 25 percent of its claimed territories. Part of the territory claimed by this government is claimed and controlled by the Maghreb, and this government calls it its southern province.
The United Nations has been mandated since 1991 to hold a referendum in the region to determine the main demand of the people of the region for independence or to remain under Moroccan rule, but the referendum has not yet been held due to various sabotages.