SPAIN and France have ditched plans for an additional gas connector linking the two countries and will instead develop a hydrogen-only subsea pipeline between the Iberian Peninsula and western Europe, the countries have announced. The pipeline, dubbed H2Med, will handle only green hydrogen - produced from renewable sources of energy - and will effectively supersede an earlier plan to complete a partially constructed gas pipeline connecting Catalonia to southern France. The Midcat project, as the abandoned gas pipeline project was called, would have taken advantage of Spain's extensive regasification facilities for imported liquefied natural gas to help supply continental Europe. Instead, a new pipeline connecting Spain, Portugal and France will be developed to transport hydrogen and strengthen the Iberian Peninsula's role as "a major energy corridor", European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said in a joint press conference in Alicante on Friday. She was speaking alongside the prime ministers of the three European countries. The Midcat project, which was tabled as a way of debottle-necking gas shipment from Spain and Portugal into France and western Europe, had stalled in the past due to French reluctance to finance the scheme, as well as opposition from some sectors. The pipeline project was brought into focus again this year as Europe suffered a gas shortage, but has been dropped again.
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