Page 4 - AfrOil Week 18 2022

AfrOil COMMENTARY AfrOil

(Photo: Medgaz)

African gas, African realities

The case of Spanish-Moroccan-Algerian tensions over GME demonstrates that if the

EU wants Africa’s gas, it will also have to recognise regional tensions and disputes

RUSSIA plays an outsize role in the EU’s energy its customers pay for natural gas supplies in
mix. Since it is responsible for about 25% of the Russian rubles rather than US dollars or Euros.
WHAT: crude oil and 40% of the natural gas used in the Meanwhile, European officials were counselling
Algeria has complained bloc, there is no easy way to reconfigure Europe’s unity and calling on members of the bloc to join
about Spain’s offer to energy mix so as not to provide material sup- forces to end the war in Ukraine more quickly.
grant Morocco access to port to the parties responsible for the war being But Russia is not the only external headache
its LNG import facilities. waged on Ukraine. for the European energy sector. At least one EU
This is why some European officials have member state has run into trouble in North
WHY: spoken out strongly against the proposed ban Africa lately. The trouble is certainly smaller in
The dispute is related to on Russian oil imports that EU energy ministers scale, with respect to both the volumes of gas
an older fight over the are discussing this week. For example, Zoltán involved and the immediate geopolitical stakes.
GME transit pipeline – Kovács, Hungary’s state secretary for inter- But it should not be ignored, especially now that
and diplomatic sparring national communications, said on May 2 that Brussels is actively looking for substitutes for
over Western Sahara.
Budapest remained opposed to this idea and had Russian fuel.
WHAT NEXT: not dropped plans to veto the measure. He also
The EU should learn from insinuated that the EU did not fully appreciate Headache in North Africa
these developments as it the depth of Hungary’s dependence on Russian The headache in question concerns Spain,
seeks out alternative gas fuel and energy and asserted his country’s right Morocco and Algeria, and it has to do with
suppliers. to set its own priorities on this front. shipments through the Gas Maghreb-Europe
The EU, in turn, has been stressing the (GME) pipeline, built to pump gas from Alge-
importance of co-operation across the bloc in ria’s Hassi R’Mel field through Morocco and
the service of a common goal – namely, support- across the Straits of Gibraltar into Spain.
ing Ukraine by restricting trade with Russia. As Until recently, Algeria’s national oil com-
Kovacs spoke, Brussels was urging EU mem- pany (NOC) Sonatrach pumped gas through
ber states to work together on energy-related the Moroccan section of GME under a 25-year
issues such as Moscow’s demand that some of transit agreement.

P4 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 18 04•May•2022