The Barcelona-Marseille undersea gas pipeline project is launched
Posted 3 Dec. 2022 at 10:11
Announced at the end of October by Emmanuel Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, the undersea hydrogen gas pipeline project dependent from Barcelona to Marseille is soon on track. The Spanish (Enagas), Portuguese (REN) and French (Teréga and GRTgaz) gas operators intend to submit a dossier before the end of the month in Brussels to obtain the label of “project of common interest”, which opens the way to European funding for technical studies.
Preliminary elements have been sent to the three governments concerned. The future marine pipeline would transport carbon-free hydrogen , produced by electrolysis from solar or wind electricity in the Iberian Peninsula. The length of the “pipe” laid at the bottom of the sea would vary between 350 and 450 km, according to three possible routes, more or less distant from the coast.
2,000 meters deep
“It’s a highly technical project, in particular because the Mediterranean is deep, it will eventually be necessary to go down to 2,000 meters deep”, explains Dominique Mockly, the general manager of Teréga. The cost of the project would be “around two billion euros”, according to the company, which expects commissioning in 2030.
A date considered optimistic within the French government: “The uncertainties are still strong, we prefer to speak of the 2030 decade”, we temper in the office of the Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
Macron and Sanchez are due to kick off the project next Friday in Alicante, Spain, at the European Union Southern Summit. The future pipeline allows Madrid and Paris to reconcile, after months of falling out over another gas pipeline project, MidCat, which was to link Spain and France as well, but by land, crossing the Pyrenees.
Not a short term answer
Midcat was supported by Spain and Portugal as well as Germany, keen to improve its supply of gas and hydrogen from southern Europe after the interruption of flows from Russia. But France had vetoed it, Emmanuel Macron pointed in particular to the environmental problems posed by the passage of the pipe in the protected areas of the Pyrenees.
“The MidCat project was not accepted in France, we had to find another solution, adopt Dominique Mockly. Given the delays in building this type of infrastructure, it cannot be seen as a short-term response to the current energy crisis. With commissioning expected in 2030, it is in line with the development of carbon-free hydrogen in Europe. This is a superb project! »
Reduce CO2 emissions from industry
The new project will not transport gas but hydrogen. Carbon-free hydrogen is seen as an energy of the future, making it possible to reduce CO2 emissions from industries such as petrochemicals, refining, steel and cement. The needs will be significant in the Marseille region, the Rhône valley and Occitanie, which could be served by the future gas pipeline and its branches.
“The new project allows a way out of this diplomatic crisis between Paris and Madrid,” comments Patrice Geoffron, director of the Center for Geopolitics of Energy and Raw Materials at Paris Dauphine University. But its realization remains uncertain at this stage, in particular because we do not yet know if we agree and will consume decarbonated hydrogen in large quantities by 2030”.