As of 2005, Spain had only 90 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of proven natural gas reserves. The country's natural gas production is insignificant, only 18 billion cubic feet per year (Bcf/y) in 2002. In 2002, Spain was Europe's second largest LNG importer, behind France. Almost all of Spain's natural gas production comes from one offshore field, Poseidon, operated by Repsol-YPF.
The largest natural gas supplier in Spain is Gas Natural (GN), the result of a 1992 merger between Catalana de Gas, Gas Madrid, and the gas infrastructure assets of Repsol Butano. Prior to deregulation, GN controlled all aspects of Spain's natural gas sector, including supply, transportation, and distribution. Since liberalization, however, GN has seen its influence diminish and its expansion plans curtailed by Comision Nacional de Energia (CNE).
In 2002, Spain consumed 725 Bcf of natural gas. Natural gas consumption in the country has risen dramatically since the 1980s, and Spain has one of the fastest-growing natural gas markets in the world. Between 1993 and 2002, Spain's natural gas consumption grew by 224%, driven mostly by the large-scale introduction of gas-fired power plants. Natural gas suppliers have had some difficulty keeping up with this rapid increase in demand, and several gas-fired power plants had to temporarily shutdown in late 2004 due to gas shortages. In December 2004, Spain's natural gas consumption increased by 22% from the previous year, and the country's Economics Ministry predicted that natural gas demand will grow by at least 9-12% per year until 2011.
Enagas operates the bulk of Spain's domestic natural gas transportation system. Half of the company's shares float on the open market, the rest being held by GN (25%) and several other natural gas companies (25%). Enagas controls 4,050 miles of pipelines in Spain, consisting of six main trunk lines that connect Spain's liquefied natural gas (LNG) and pipeline import terminals with the country's interior. The company also maintains 49.9 Bcf of working gas storage capacity. Enagas also operates three LNG receiving terminals in Spain: Barcelona (1.12 Bcf/d), Cartagena (760 Mmcf/d), and Huelva (760 Mmcf/d).
Spain imports natural gas through two international pipelines. The Trans-Pyrenean pipeline, linking Calahorra, Spain to Lacq, France, began operations in 1993. This pipeline has a capacity of 330 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d), allowing Spain to import natural gas from Norway via France. The second import pipeline is the the 1,000-mile, 820-Mmcf/d Maghreb-Europe Gas (MEG, also called Pedro Duran Farell). MEG, completed in 1996, connects Algeria's Hassi R'mel gas field with Cordoba, Spain, via Morocco. In August 2001, Algeria's Sonatrach, part owner of MEG, awarded ABB a $93 million contract to build a natural gas compressor station on MEG in order to increase the line's capacity to 1.78 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) by 2006. Enagas also operates two pipeline connections with Portugal, Tarifa (1.08 Bcf/d) and Tuy (40.6 Mmcf/d), through which Portugal imports natural gas from the rest of Europe and North Africa.
The Bahia de Bizakaia Group, a consortium of BP, Repsol-YPF, Iberdrola, and Ente Vasco de la Energia (EVE), operates an LNG terminal at Bilbao, with a regasification capacity of 740 Mmcf/d. The consortium also owns an 800-megawatt (MW) power plant fed by the terminal.
