"Morocco has asked for support to guarantee its energy security on the basis of trade relations and Spain has responded positively as it would do with any other friend or neighbour," Spain's ecological transition ministry said in a statement.

"Morocco will be able to obtain liquefied natural gas (LNG) on the international markets, bring it to a regasification plant on the (Spanish) mainland and use the GME pipeline to transport it to its territory," it said, without giving a date nor outlining the volumes concerned.

The announcement came three months after Algeria said it would not renew an expiring 25-year deal to use the pipeline through which it had transported gas to Spain via Morocco.

Algeria, Africa's biggest gas exporter, had used the GME since 1996 to export some 10 billion cubic metres of gas per year to Spain and onwards to Portugal.

In return, Morocco had received around a billion cubic metres of gas per year as transit fees, covering around 97 percent of its needs.