Africa gas pipeline opens

The first gas pipeline between North Africa and Europe - financed largely by the European Union - opened last week, bringing gas from Algeria to Spain and eventually to France and Portugal. A symbolic link between Africa and Europe, it will help to diversify the supply of gas throughout Europe and bring down transport costs.

"It was a dream becoming true. Few people believed in this project 25 months ago," the Algerian Energy Minister Amar Makhloufi told foreign guests and reporters shortly after the pipeline went officially on stream on Saturday.

The 1,400km pipeline brings gas from Morocco's Hassi R'Mel deposits via Morocco and the Strait of Gibraltar to the southern Spanish city of Cordoba, where it will be channelled into Spain's existing natural gas network. By 2000, the pipe will supply nearly half of Spain's gas needs.

The pipeline has been nearly five years in the making, at a cost of $2.3bn - nearly half of which was contributed by the EU. Supplies are to build up gradually and will replace existing supplies brought by boat from Algeria - which supplies half of Spain's gas - Libya, Norway and Australia.

It is the most complicatedproject of its kind in the world, since 45km of pipe had to be laid on the geologically complex and uneven floor of the Strait of Gibraltar, in the teeth of fiendishly strong currents.

Fears that the pipeline might be the target of Algeria's Islamic fundamentalists have been played down by the Spanish gas authorities.