NATO Reportedly Contemplates Building New Pipeline in Bid to Reduce Dependency on Russian Gas - Tasnim News Agency

(Tasnim) – NATO has "plans" to build a pipeline that would connect Catalonia, Spain and France in order to reduce Europe's reliance on Russian natural gas, the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia reported, citing anonymous sources in the country's government.

The proposed structure could reportedly be used to transfer around 7 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year from Algeria and foreign LNG shipments. The latter could be stored and processed in eight LNG plants located in Spain and Portugal, the newspaper said. La Vanguardia's sources claim the proposal is on NATO's "working table" and that Germany is "very interested" in the project, Sputnik reported.

The piepline project itself is not new and is known as Midcat. It was first proposed three years ago, but was rejected by Spanish and French regulators as potentially unprofitable due to Europe's plans to achieve net-zero emissions by the middle of the century via the use of green energy.