Repsol said it expects its five Spanish refineries to return to normal operations within a week following Monday's nationwide power outage.
The company confirmed that power was restored to all its refineries on Monday evening, allowing the restart process to begin. It will take three days to restart the crude distillation units and 5-7 days to restart the secondary conversion units, with hydrocrackers taking the longest, according to chief executive Josu Jon Imaz.
A momentary and as-yet unexplained drop in power supply on the Spanish electricity grid caused power cuts across most of Spain and Portugal, disrupting petrochemical plants and airports, as well as refineries.
Imaz noted that Repsol was fortunate that its refineries avoided damage from petroleum coke formation and other solidification processes during the shutdown. Repsol's 220,000 b/d Petronor refinery in Bilbao was the first to restart, thanks to electricity imports from France, he said.
State-controlled petroleum reserves corporation Cores has temporarily reduced Spain's obligation to hold 92 days of oil product consumption as strategic reserves by four days, mitigating potential supply issues from the outage.
Imaz declined to speculate on the cause of the power outage.
