Rome/ Nova Agency Spanish Minister of Environmental Transformation Teresa Ribera Rodrigues emphasized that Algeria is a “key partner” for Spain, the Italian news agency Nova reported.
Rodriguez, also Deputy Prime Minister of Spain, said in an interview with Nova Agency on the sidelines of the 12th edition of the “State of the Union” conference in the Italian city of Fiesli today, that “Algeria is a major partner for Spain, and the Madrid government wants to have the best possible relations with both Morocco and Algeria.” ‘, but ‘don’t be afraid’ about the gas supply.”
On the recent tensions between Madrid and Algeria, the minister said, “We would like the relations to be better than the current ones,” but she added, “We are not afraid of a cut-off – gas – from Algeria, but we certainly hope that things will go better.”
According to Rodriguez, both Italy and Spain have “important energy relations” with Algeria, although “the commercial terms for (Algerian) gas supplies have always been different.”
She explained that “the Italian companies have carried out and are still carrying out drilling and extraction activities in the oil and gas fields in Algeria, while the Spanish companies worked on pipelines and infrastructure or reached contracts to supply the gas that was extracted by the Algerian companies.”
She noted that “Italy needs to compensate for gas supplies in a much shorter time and this is understandable,” commenting on the recent visit of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, and CEO of Eni to Algeria to sign a cooperation agreement on gas and energy.
And she continued, “At the same time, we know that for the Algerian government there is a question mark about how to determine the reference value used for the price of gas sold to Spain,” stressing that the reference “standard” for Madrid has always been the United States market.
