Spain: Repsol Plans First Advanced Biofuels Plant in Cartagena

Repsol will build the first production plant for advanced biofuels in Spain at its Cartagena refinery.

From this new facility, the multi-energy company, committed to the circular economy as a tool for efficient resource use and emissions reduction, will annually supply 250,000 tons of advanced biofuels for aircraft, trucks, and cars.

The new facility, construction of which will represent an estimated investment of €188 million, will include the commissioning of a hydrogen plant that will fuel a new hydrotreatment unit equipped with cutting-edge technology.

This project is part of Repsol's commitment to the energy transition and its goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050. The advanced biofuels produced at the Cartagena refinery will enable a reduction of 900,000 tons of CO2 annually – approximately the equivalent of the CO2 absorption of a forest the size of 180,000 soccer fields – in yet another of the company's initiatives to fight climate change and, at the same time, give recycled raw materials a new use.

With this state-of-the-art decarbonization project, Repsol is also making a commitment to developing the industrial sector and to generating economic activity in Spain while promoting direct, indirect, and induced employment. With the support of auxiliary companies, the construction and commissioning work for the plant will be carried out in different phases and will require the work of some 1,000 professionals from diverse fields.

Repsol Chairman Antonio Brufau today met with the President of the Murcia Region, Fernando López Miras, at the seat of the regional government, to explain the details of the new Repsol advanced biofuels plant, an important project for Cartagena and for the region as a whole in terms of generating economic activity and employment.

At the press conference, Repsol CEO Josu Jon Imaz stressed the importance of this pioneering project in Spain: “With this initiative, we at Repsol are decisively promoting a new technological route that will be key in our path towards carbon neutrality. It is added to the projects we have already implemented in energy efficiency, low-emissions electricity generation, renewable hydrogen, circular economy, synthetic fuels, and CO2 capture, use, and storage, among others.”

“Spain must base its decarbonization strategy on its industrial and technological capabilities, because that will be the way to promote a competitive and innovative business fabric,” said Imaz, before adding that “all forms of decarbonization are valid and complementary and incentivizing them so that they can all contribute, without exclusion, will accelerate the energy transition and help us, as a society, achieve a speedy economic recovery, so necessary under the current circumstances of the coronavirus pandemic.”