There are not many lies about natural gas. There are so many… Not even Algeria has stopped supplying natural gas to Spain, no matter how much there was a Spanish-Algerian disagreement a couple of years ago; Not even Russia has stopped injecting gas into the veins of the national energy system, no matter how much there is a war in Ukraine and many European resolutions of “sanctions” on the Putin regime. Not much less. Algeria is the largest gas supplier to Spain so far this year, according to the latest Cores bulletin (from the Corporation of Strategic Reserves of Petroleum Products, Government of Spain) and Russia is the second largest. The podium is identical (first, Algeria; second, Russia) if the chosen period corresponds to the last twelve months. In the last twelve months, 124,706 gigawatt hours of gas have arrived in Spain from Algeria; from Russia, 75,734. Come on, the war is not an obstacle to the massive arrival of Russian natural gas into the veins of the national energy system. Third place is occupied by the United States, with 74,210 gigabytes per hour.
Between January 1 and April 30 of this year, and according to data from Red Eléctrica (REE)In Spain, more than 15% of electricity has come from thermal plants that burn natural gas (combined cycle and cogeneration plants). Currently there are 26,250 megawatts of power in combined cycles in Spain. Among the large electricity companies that operate in the Spanish market, Naturgy, formerly known as Gas Natural Fenosa, has 7,400 megawatts of power in combined cycle plants; Iberdrola has 5,700; and Endesa, which is the third with the most installed power, 5,445 MW (the latter assures that it does not buy gas from Russia: “we source – the company reports – from Africa, the Middle East and the United States, something public that we have said many times” ).
According to the Ministry of Economy, Commerce and Business, Spain paid in 2023 for its gas imports (see data on page 12) almost 14,000 million euros (13,971.9 M€). The latest Monthly Foreign Trade Report published by the Ministry, which collects data as of March 31 of this year, in those first three months of the year (January, February and March), Spain has already paid for its natural gas imports more than 2.8 billion euros.
