Iberian utility hopes to rescue gas pipeline plan

* Spain's gas oversupply estimated at 11.5 bcm

* Medgaz link from Algeria could increase glut

* Hopes for pipeline in next round of bidding

By Martin Roberts

BILBAO, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Portugal's EDP Gas said it still hopes to build a pipeline taking gas from oversupplied Spain to France, although the project failed to attract enough interest from gas companies to win regulatory approval last month.

The Euskadour route in the western Pyrenees narrowly failed to draw enough bids for capacity to satisfy the regulator. [ID:nLT249348]

"The technical case (for Euskadour) is there. Maybe there will have to be political reasoning to overcome the obstacle that has arisen," Carlos Mata, a board member at EDP Gas, told the European Autumn Gas Conference in Bilbao on Wednesday.

Mata estimated that long-term gas supply contracts in Spain exceeded demand in the first nine months of 2009 by 11.5 billion cubic metres (bcm), which compares with annual consumption of about 40 bcm.