France, Spain, Portugal to build hydrogen pipeline by 2030

ALICANTE, Spain (AP) — Spain, France and Portugal agreed Friday to build by 2030 a major undersea pipeline to transport hydrogen from the Iberian Peninsula to France and eventually the rest of Europe.

The pipeline is aimed at making the European Union's energy supply more independent, a goal expedited by the Russian invasion of Ukraine last February that precipitated an energy crisis.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the pipeline, dubbed H2Med, will be able to convey some 2 million metric tons of hydrogen to France annually — 10% of the EU´s estimated hydrogen needs. The project is expected to cost 2.5 billion euros ($2.6 billion).

The announcement came after a meeting between Sánchez, his French and Portuguese counterparts and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in the eastern Spanish city of Alicante.

“Today, the Iberian Peninsula is becoming a major European energy gateway to the world,” Von der Leyen said at a joint press briefing.

French President Emmanuel Macron said H2Med, which replaces an earlier proposal to transport gas across the Pyrenees Mountains, will “take a new path through the Mediterranean and rely on a technology of the future, which is hydrogen.”

“It will also probably allow later other European interconnections toward some other countries which will want to get that hydrogen,” he added.

Portugal, Spain and France struck a broad deal on the plan in October. They hope to present it to the European Commission by Dec. 15 so it will be eligible for EU financing, which could represent as much as 50% of the cost.

The project will first connect two plants in northern Portugal and northern Spain and then involve a pipeline under the Mediterranean Sea from the northeastern Spanish port of Barcelona to France’s Marseille.

“We are...