The 'head' of LNG Bunkering at Naturgy, Antonio Miranda, assured this Tuesday that Spain "is not going to have a supply shortage" of gas and that "prices are going to be competitive," underlining the strength of the country's gas and energy infrastructure.
Miranda made these statements in València, during a round table held at the conference 'Learnings and roadmap after a year of blackout: resilience, competitiveness and energy governance', organized by AVAESEN, when asked about the guarantee of supply in the context of the conflict in the Middle East.
The Naturgy executive recalled that the widespread blackout of April last year evidenced the "robustness" of the national electricity system, which is why, he said, "the tranquility we can have in our system is absolute." In this regard, he highlighted Spain's progress in renewables and the competitiveness of electricity prices.
He remarked that it is "undeniable" that Spain will have sufficient gas and recalled that, despite being a country with scarce fossil resources, it concentrates seven of the 17 existing regasification plants in Europe. He added that, even without its own natural gas exploitations, in 2022 and in the midst of the pandemic, the country was able to export gas to other states.
Miranda has detailed that in 2022 the cost of natural gas multiplied by ten, going from 35 euros per megawatt/hour to 350 euros, and even so the supply was maintained without interruptions.
"We are in a totally international environment, the conditions that set prices in our sector are fully influenced by events in the Middle East and other countries," he explained, alluding to the global geopolitical context.
On this line, he has highlighted that "the increase in natural gas production in Australia, Qatar, and especially the United States has made the markets super stable". As he indicated, "much more pronounced increases than what we are experiencing were expected", and he reiterated that "prices, if they are going to be competitive anywhere, it will be in Spain because of all the infrastructure we have".
The head of Naturgy has also pointed out that the company's supply contracts are mostly long-term and that "we are covered in a very important part of the contracts, and from there the scenario for me is one of stability".
When questioned about the possibility of reaching prices of one thousand euros per megawatt/hour as in Germany, he recalled that Germany had "a policy totally contrary to ours, it dispensed with gas and did not have regasification plants," which forced the country to accelerate projects that had been paralyzed for years in just six months.
"We have seven operational plants that are allowing us a logistics that, accompanied by Algerian gas, I don't see a supply problem," he reiterated, to conclude: "No, we are not going to have supply problems and prices will be competitive."