France, Spain, and Portugal announced yesterday that they have reached an agreement to replace the MidCat pipeline with an undersea pipeline connecting Barcelona to Marseille and carrying natural gas and green hydrogen.

The MidCat project was launched in 2003 with the aim of connecting the natural gas networks of France and Spain through a 190 km long pipeline from Ostalrique, north of Barcelona, ​​to Barbeira, east of Carcassonne, passing through the Pyrenees.

Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, upon his arrival in Brussels for the Summit of European leaders dedicated to the energy crisis, explained that they had agreed to replace the MidCat project with a new plan, which will be called the Green Energy Corridor and will connect the Iberian Peninsula with France. 

As he explained, the goal is to build a pipeline that will transport green hydrogen but also, in a transitional phase, gas that the European energy market needs.

Sanchez, French President, Emmanuel Macron, and Portuguese Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, will meet on December 8 and 9 in Alicante to finalize the deal.

Spain’s Energy Ministry also said Madrid and Paris had agreed to speed up energy interconnections through the Bay of Biscay.

Spain, Portugal, and Germany wanted the MidCat to be built as they believed it would reduce the EU’s dependence on Russian gas. Through this pipeline, Spain, which has 30% of Europe’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification capacity, could export gas – through the ships that would transport it from the US or Qatar – to the rest of Europe. 

However, the project was abandoned in 2019 due to its environmental impact and the limited economic profit it would bring.

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