Repsol sees Spanish refineries back to normal in a week

Market: Crude oil, LPG, Oil products, Petrochemicals
30/04/25

Adds chief executive's comments and further detail on refineries

Repsol said it expects its five Spanish refineries to return to normal operations within a week following the nationwide power outage on Monday, 28 April.

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 secondary conversion units, with hydrocrackers taking the longest, according to chief executive Josu Jon Imaz.

A momentary and 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.

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.

Repsol's refining margin indicator, a benchmark based on European crack spreads weighted to the firm's product basket, has been recovering this week and stood at $7.5/bl this morning, compared with an average of $4.2/bl in April and $5.3/bl in the first quarter, according to Imaz.

The company posted a 70¢/bl premium to the indicator in January-March on refinery optimisation and use of heavier and cheaper crudes. This was lower than the $1.20/bl premium it reported in 2024 and negatively affected by the high water content in first-quarter deliveries of heavy Mexican Maya, a staple for Repsol's more complex refineries.

The high water cut in the Maya receipts shaved a potential 50¢/bl from Repsol's refining margin premium in the first quarter, and operational issues at the company's Tarragona refinery a further 20¢/bl, according to Imaz.

Repsol has already completed the three major refinery maintenance projects for 2025 it flagged at its Bilbao, Tarragona and Puertollano refineries. Work on the three refineries in the first quarter cut about 40¢/bl from the firm's refining margin.

The three factors point to a combined $1.10/bl shortfall in the firm's refining margin in the first quarter and were one of the reasons for the 80pc fall in adjusted profit at Repsol's refining-focused industrial division to €131mn ($149mn) in January-March from a year earlier and the 62pc fall in group profit to €366mn.

By Jonathan Gleave

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