Morocco’s imports of natural gas from Spain rose by a whopping 403% during 2023, accounting for 12.5 percent of total Spanish exports of the fuel, according to the Corporation for Strategic Reserves of Petroleum Products (Cores), Spanish news outlet “El periódico de la Energia” reported on Thursday.
While in 2022 Spain exported only about 1,881 GWh of natural gas to Morocco, 2023 exports climbed to about 9,472 GWh.
In 2021, Spain’s total exports of natural gas were 35,651 GWh, none of which went to Morocco.
Last year, Spain’s total exports of the fuel jumped 10.5%, totaling 75.495 GWh. France accounted for 50.7% of the total (38,248 GWh, up 3.9% from the previous year), followed by Morocco, and Italy a close third behind Morocco at 8.121 GWh, accounting for 10.8% of Spain’s total exports.
Worldwide, Algeria was the largest producer of natural gas in 2023, accounting for 29.3% of total world production (116,252 GWh), followed by the United States (82,858 GWh, 20.9%).
Russian production of natural gas climbed significantly by 29.8% to 72,690 GWh in 2023, up from 56,021 GWh the year before. This is the second consecutive increase in Russian gas production, following a 54.8% comeback in 2022.