New route for natural gas in Spain

Argentina wants to sell its gas to Europe and Spain could be the gateway that the South American country is looking for. The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, and that of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, agreed this Tuesday to promote the Strategic Association Plan agreed last year between the two countries and they showed willing to strengthen energy cooperation in the gas and lithium sectors. “We can be a stable supplier of energy,” Fernández wrote on Twitter after meeting for more than an hour with Sánchez in Moncloa.

“I think we have a perfect synergy to take advantage of with Spain. Spain has 30% of the plants that regasify liquefied gas and we we can make an agreement to be suppliers of liquefied gas with Spain. This is how it is distributed from Spain to the rest of Europeit is a project that we have for three years and we need financing”, Fernández explained in an interview with RTVE.

In the words of Sánchez, in line with “privileged” bilateral relationswhich were reinforced last year “satisfactorily” with the aforementioned plan, the two nations are ready to increase cooperation in the digital and energy fields “within a context of war like the current one“. The two leaders underlined the “attunement and understanding” in the face of the international situation caused by the war and agreed to condemn the invasion of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as stressing the importance of Latin American and European countries continuing to condemn the attack at the United Nations.

Argentina, second South American country with the highest gas production

According to data from WorldometersArgentina is the second South American country that produces the most gas per year (1,518,545,000 MMcf), only surpassed by Venezuela, with 2,832,121,740. The country has a growing gas production thanks to the development of its shale hydrocarbon formation of the Vaca Muerta deposit, but it is still insufficient to be self-sufficient and must import gas from Bolivia (in 2021, it imported 12 million cubic meters per day) and LNG. Thus, the construction of a gas pipeline from the Vaca Muerta field (southwest of Argentina) “will generate for Argentina energy self-sufficiency“and it will open up possibilities” of being a born exporter of liquefied natural gas“said Argentine Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero.

The Argentine president’s stop in Spain is part of the tour he has scheduled in Europe, and his next destinations are France and Germany. Fernandez’s goal is to establish relations with the European powers and, jointly, “see what we want, what we are going to do as a world in the face of the war that has been unleashed”. “The war is putting two fundamental issues in check, food security and energy security,” explains the Argentine president in the interview with RTVE. The gas pipeline to be installed in Vaca Muerta will need a time of “three or four years”but Fernández assures that “there are Argentine companies determined to do it”, and insists that what is needed is “financing”.

Meetings with Macron and Scholz

After the meeting with Sánchez, Fernández was received by the King of Spain, Felipe VI, with whom he held a private meeting in which they exchanged impressions on the state of bilateral relations and other current affairs. In addition, he met with businessmen to attract investment, according to official Argentine sources before his arrival in Spain.

From Spain, Fernández travels to Germany to meet this Wednesday with the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in what will be his first official meeting, and he will take advantage of the occasion to visit German companies in the automotive and environmental sectors. On Friday he will be in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron.