The French and Spanish energy regulators, respectively CRE (Commission de régulation de l'énergie) and CNMC (Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia), have dismissed the STEP (South Transit East Pyrenees) gas interconnection project submitted by the gas transmission network operators Terega and Enagas. The €442m interconnector was rejected on grounds that it does not meet the market's needs and is not sufficiently mature to move forward.
The STEP project was announced in July 2018 and would have spread between Barbaira (France) and Figueres (Spain), to support the eastern gas interconnection with France. Its main objective was to increase the French-Spanish gas exchange capacity by 180 GWh/d (6.5 bcm/year) from France to Spain and by 230 GWh/d (8.3 bcm/year) from Spain to France. The construction was slated to start in 2020 and the commissioning date for 2022. The project would have been part of the over €3bn Midcat interconnection project. In 2016, CRE had expressed reserves on the project's costs and estimated that the project would not improve supply security for France, but would instead increase gas prices for consumers.
According to the French regulator, the current gas exchange capacity between Spain and France currently stand at 225 GWh/d (8.1 bcm/year) of which 60 GWh/d (2.2 bcm/year) interruptible in the France-Spain direction.