Algerian President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, ordered Monday, November 1st, 2021, the non-renewal of the commercial agreement which expires Sunday 31st October at midnight,  between Algeria’s state-owned hydrocarbon firm Sonatrach and the Moroccan Office for Electricity and Potable Water (ONEE).

According to a press release from the Algerian Presidency of the Republic, President Tebboune received a report from the Sonatrach Group, Africa’s biggest natural gas exporter, on a trade agreement binding the energy firm, since July 2011, to the Moroccan Office for Electricity and Potable Water (ONEE). The report provides for the granting of money to Morocco in exchange for pumping gas to Spain through Moroccan territory.

“President Tebboune ordered the cessation of trade ties between Sonatrach and the Moroccan National Office for Electricity and Potable Water (ONEE), and the non-renewal of the contract, which expires at midnight Sunday,” according to a presidency statement.

The statement added: “President Tebboune received a report on the contract linking the national company (Sonatrach) to the Moroccan Diwan of Electricity and potable water, since 2011 and ending on October 31, 2021, at midnight.” 

Due to the hostile attitude of Morocco, the President of the Republic, after consulting the Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, Aïmene Benabderrahmane, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ramtane Lamamra, and the Minister of Energy and Mines, Mohamed Arkab, decided to cease the commercial relationship and not to renew the contract. 

“In view of the aggressive practices of the Kingdom of Morocco towards Algeria, which affect national unity (..) the President of the Republic ordered (Sonatrach) to stop the commercial relationship with the Moroccan company, and not to renew the contract,” concluded the communiqué; noting that the contract was due to expire at midnight Sunday.

Prior to this decision, Algeria used to supply Spain with gas through two gas pipelines, the first is the “Maghreb-Europe” pipeline, reaching the south of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), and it entered service in 1996.

Morocco was benefiting from this pipeline in the form of financial revenues as transit rights.

As for the second line, known as “Medgaz”, it passes directly from the Algerian town of “Bani Saf” to Spain’s Almeria and was inaugurated in 2011, with a transport capacity of 8 billion cubic meters annually.

Earlier that week, Algerian Energy Minister Mohamed Arkab announced his country’s determination to fulfill all commitments related to gas supplies to Spain, expressing its readiness to negotiate any additional quantities.

The Algerian news agency quoted Arkab, as saying after a meeting he granted to his Spanish counterpart Teresa Ribera: “We have assured our partners in Spain that all our natural gas supplies to the contractual quantities with Sonatrach, we undertake within the framework of the contracts concluded between Sonatrach and Spanish companies.”

He added: “We have assured our Spanish partner that we are also ready to talk about quantities in excess “and we have set a timetable for the delivery of all those quantities.”

He highlighted that Algeria, Spain’s main gas supplier, will pump its supplies through the Medgas submarine pipeline, as well as LNG plants.

A well-informed source from the national hydrocarbon firm Sonatrach confirmed that the large part of gas supply through the Medgaz pipeline will be allocated to Spain and Portugal, in the form of natural gas-directed for consumption. 

Algeria plans, noteworthy, to increase the capacity of the Medgaz pipeline, which connects it directly with Spain, to 10.5 billion cubic meters per year by the end of November, compared to the current eight billion cubic meters.

The rest of the supply, estimated at 2.5 billion cubic meters, will be supplied in the form of liquefied natural gas via ships from the Skikda (eastern Algeria) and Arzew (western Algeria) production companies, especially with the upcoming receipt of the new LNG shipping terminal at the port of Skikda, which will receive giant LNG ships.

Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco on August 24th, 2021, and closed its airspace to Moroccan civil and military aviation, accusing its western neighbor of plotting to destabilize the country and undermine its strategic interests. 

Several Algerian officials, including Algeria’s Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra, publicly cited an accumulation of grievances leading to this decision which culminates a period of growing tension between the North African countries which are mired in a decades-long feud, with their borders closed to each other. 

Speaking at a press conference in the capital Algiers, the Algerian Foreign Minister denounced, in the strongest terms, massive and systematic acts of espionage held by Morocco, which resorted to a Zionist-made Pegasus spyware against Algerian officials and citizens.

Morocco, the Algerian official went on to say, is supporting a terrorist and separatist group (MAK) and failed in bilateral commitments, including on the Western Sahara issue.

Other overruns have been cited by the Minister, as long tense relations between Algeria and Morocco have deteriorated of late, especially following Morocco's normalization, last year, of diplomatic ties with the Zionist Entity, which came with a quid pro quo of American recognition of Rabat's alleged sovereignty over Western Sahara, the last colony in the African continent.

Among the reasons for severing diplomatic ties, the Minister highlighted the remarks pronounced by Moroccan diplomatic representation in New York, after he delivered to the member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement an official memorandum in which Morocco expressly declared its support for the so-called “right to self-determination of the Kabyle people” in Algeria, a serious deviation condemned, categorically, by Algeria, a sovereign and indivisible country, dubbing it as a hostile campaign against it.

Algeria considered this memorandum to be: “A recognition of the multifaceted Moroccan support currently provided to a well-known terrorist group,” referring to the separatist Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK), which Algeria recently designated as a terrorist group, along with the Rachad Movement.

Mr. Lamamra, also, referred to the recent comments by the Zionist Foreign Minister Yair Lapid who was on a historic visit to Morocco as part of their normalization of ties. The Zionist official attacked Algeria from this neighboring country, in blatant violations of good neighboring relations.

"Morocco has turned its territory into a platform allowing foreign powers to speak with hostility about Algeria. Since 1948, no Zionist official made a hostile declaration to an Arab country from another Arab country,” APS agency quoted Mr. Lamamra as saying. 

These hostile actions pointed out the Algerian FM, also concerned, among others, the active and documented collaboration of the Kingdom of Morocco with two terrorist organizations known as MAK and RACHAD, whose latest heinous crimes are linked to their premeditated involvement in the lethal wildfires which ravaged several provinces of the country, burning tens of thousands of hectares of forest and killing at least 90 people, including more than 30 soldiers, in addition, to their involvement in the torture and the abject assassination, immolation, and mutilation of the Algerian compatriot Djamel Bensmaïl.