CASTELLAR DEL VALLÈS, Spain — Less than an hour’s drive from Barcelona, yellow posts march across a landscape of scattered trees and prickly bushes, marking the path of an underground natural gas pipeline.

But it’s a pipeline to nowhere. It doesn’t carry any gas and ends far from its intended destination in France.

It may remain empty forever. Despite enthusiasm in Brussels to try for a second time to build the pipeline, opposition to the €3.1 billion project known as MidCat is mounting. The problem? Most of the costs will be borne by France but the bulk of the benefits will go to Spain.

The clock on the pipeline is ticking. French and Spanish regulators are expected to make a decision on MidCat’s future by early next year, which will also determine the pipeline’s chances of getting EU cash. There is also pressure to move while European Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete, a Spaniard and fan of the project, is still in office.

Project promoters say the pipeline is needed to boost regional energy security and help the EU better integrate its gas market. Opponents argue it’s a waste of money in an area already well-supplied with gas and ill-suited to the EU’s efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

For Marcelino Oreja, the CEO of Spanish gas operator Enagás, the issue isn’t one of short-term costs, rather he argues it should be seen as part of building the European project.

“When the EU promoted the single market for goods and services, we invested in railways,” he said. “Now you have plenty of railways connecting the countries. The same thing must happen to electricity and gas — you need the physical networks.”

Take two

That’s easier said than done.

It’s the second time the project’s promoters, Enagás and its French counterpart Teréga, are trying to see it through.

The pipeline section near Barcelona was built in 2011-2012 when the project first kicked off, and stretches for about 80 kilometers between the Catalan regions of Martorell and Hostalric.

It was later shelved thanks to French skepticism, leaving the already-built section abandoned and residents angry about the disruption.

Promoters are hoping for a MidCat resurrection, thanks to political and financial support from the European Commission.

The pipeline is on the Commission’s list of preferred infrastructure projects, and Brussels has already paid about €7 million for pre-construction studies.

MidCat was initially pitched as part of the broader EU effort to reduce the bloc’s dependence on Russian energy imports by shipping more gas from the Iberian peninsula to the rest of Europe, but Oreja argues gas could flow both ways — sending liquefied natural gas (LNG) or pipeline gas from Algeria to France, and shipping Russian gas from France down to Spain.

“What’s important is to have both alternatives because that’s what will keep gas cheap,” Oreja said, pointing out that Spanish gas prices are higher than the French.

Unlike a few years ago, the mega project is now split into two parts to make it more digestible.

The first part is called the South Transit East Pyrenees, or STEP, and is meant to continue the existing abandoned line into France for 120 km, at a cost of about €440 million. France would cover two-thirds of that.

The goal is for construction to start next year and be completed by 2022. The more expensive second half of MidCat would follow, including reinforcing about 800 km of the gas network in France.

The full project aims to add about 7.5 billion cubic meters of cross-border capacity, approximately doubling the amount of gas that can flow between the two countries.

Not so fast

Gas operators are hoping for EU money early next year to help build it.

Before that, however, project promoters need to get the green light  from the French and Spanish energy regulators. A decision is expected by the end of January— but it’s not looking promising.

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Although Brussels backs the project, a report prepared for the Commission in 2017 questioned the economic validity of MidCat. It found that the project’s costs are higher than its assumed benefits in most scenarios.

French regulator CRE has also repeatedly opposed MidCat. In 2016 it expressed “very strong reservations,” while in a July report, the regulator said that “in all cases, the economic benefits of [MidCat] would be located exclusively in the Iberian Peninsula.”

At a July energy summit between France, Spain and Portugal, French President Emmanuel Macron said the gas link could be considered only if makes economic sense and gas consumption remains significant.

“The French view is that we don’t need MidCat because the interconnection system through the south of France is good enough,” said Pierre Chareyre, executive vice president at French energy company Engie.

Oreja said MidCat will boost the bloc’s security of supply, arguing the extra capacity may come in useful.

“We never build infrastructure for average use,” he said. “If you build your bathrooms in your home based on average use, you will have one bathroom in the whole home, but you build your bathrooms in your house for peak demand.”

But Chareyre said that if Europe needs more LNG, there are easier and cheaper ways of getting it.

“You have a lot unused capacity in the north of Europe to import LNG, including the French terminals, which is closer to the consuming centers,” he said. “Why use a longer route to import LNG through Spain rather than import it through France and the U.K.?”

There are also signs of caution from Spain’s new Socialist government.

In an interview with POLITICO this summer, Teresa Ribera, Spain’s minister for ecological transition, said she tends to be “extraordinarily cautious” about new gas investments until Spain figures out how much it can rely on gas in the long run, since it is a transition fuel to a greener energy future.

The project has also angered NGOs.

“If built, it would damage the climate, massively waste taxpayer subsidies, lead to higher prices for consumers, would not increase energy security, and would barely even be used,” said Antoine Simon, campaigner with Friends of the Earth Europe. “Cañete has inexplicably thrown his weight behind this dubious pipeline, but it’s high time he withdrew EU support and money from it.”

The Commission said earlier this year Brussels has no plans to remove MidCat from its list of priority energy infrastructure projects, despite calls from some MEPs to do so.

But at a time when fossil fuel projects are being viewed with increasing skepticism, big-ticket items like MidCat face a tough sell.

“No infrastructure project in the gas industry is easy now,” Oreja said. “We are aware of that.”