Spanish refineries, petchems restart after power outage

Market: Crude oil, LPG, Oil products
29/04/25

Spanish oil companies Repsol and Moeve are restarting refineries and petrochemical plants after they were halted by a massive power cut across Spain and Portugal yesterday, 28 April.

Power has returned to Repsol's five Spanish refineries, which have a combined 890,000 b/d of capacity, and its two petrochemicals plants in Tarragona and Puertollano, as well as Moeve's 464,000 b/d of refining capacity and two petrochemicals plants in southern Spain.

Facilities are "restarting progressively" after power was restored from late on 28 April, according to the companies. They declined to say when they expect production to return to levels prior to the outages.

A momentary and as-yet-unexplained drop in power supply on the Spanish electricity grid of over 10GW at around 12.30 CET (10:30 GMT) caused power cuts across most of Spain and Portugal yesterday, shutting down industrial complexes.

The outage followed a localised and unexplained loss of power in Cartagena southern Spain on 22 April which shut down Repsol's 220,000 refinery for several days, the company confirmed.

Portugal's Galp has not yet responded to requests for confirmation that its 226,000 b/d Sines refinery in southern Portugal halted yesterday, although one worker at the facility confirmed to Argus that the refinery is restarting now after a "total shutdown" following the power cut.

BP said operations at its 108,000 b/d Castellon refinery in eastern Spain "have not been affected by the power outage" but the facility did "activate an emergency response plan" and is working "closely with local authorities to manage the situation."

Spain's dominant oil product pipeline and storage operator Exolum, whose facilities connect refineries and ports, and deliver to service stations, said its infrastructure is working "normally" today after yesterday's disruption, adding that it managed to supply essential services and airports with fuel throughout the blackout.

Repsol's 220,000 b/d Bilbao refinery, which has limited hydrocracking capacity and no major petrochemicals units, took just two days to return to prior production levels after a power outage caused a total shutdown in 2016.

Any recovery to normal functioning of a plant could take longer depending on the configuration of a particular refinery, whether any damage to units occurred and whether any petrochemical units were affected.

Airport operations

Aena — the firm that operates 48 Spanish airports — said that all airports in its network had fully resumed operations as of Tuesday morning. Airlines including Iberia, AirEuropa and Easyjet expect all flights to operate as scheduled today.

The power outage halted operations at airports in Spain, Portugal, Morocco and southern France. Morocco's National Airports Office (Onda) announced that check-in and boarding procedures have been fully restored at all airports in the country.

Around 500 flights were cancelled in Spain and Portugal, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium, after deducting double-counted flights between the two countries.

Lisbon airport was the worst hit, with 45pc of departures cancelled, as well as about 30pc of departures at Seville airport. Around 50 flights each were grounded at Madrid and Barcelona airports — Spain's busiest.

By Jonathan Gleave and Amaar Khan

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London, 3 May (Argus) — A core group of eight Opec+ members has agreed to accelerate, for a second consecutive month, their plan to unwind some of their production cuts, the Opec secretariat said Saturday. As it did for May, the group will again raise its collective output target by 411,000 b/d in June, three times as much as it had planned in its original roadmap to gradually unwind 2.2mn b/d of crude production cuts by the middle of next year. The original plan envisaged a slow and steady unwind over 18 months from April, with monthly increments of about 137,000 b/d. But today's decision means that the eight — Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria, Oman and Kazakhstan — will have unwound almost half of the 2.2mn b/d cut in the space of just three months. The decision to maintain this accelerated pace into June is somewhat surprising, given the weakness in oil prices and the outlook for the global economy. The eight's decision last month to deliver a three-in-one hike in May was seen as a key reason for the recent slide in oil prices, alongside US President Donald Trump's tariff policies. Front month Ice Brent futures have fallen by about $13/bl since early April to stand at just over $61/bl. But the eight today pointed to "current healthy market fundamentals, as reflected in the low oil inventories" as a key factor in its latest decision. It reiterated, as it has in the past, that the gradual monthly increases "may be paused or reversed subject to evolving market conditions." As was the case for May, delegates said that the main driver for the June hike was again a desire to send a message to those countries that have persistently breached their production targets since the start of last year — most notably Kazakhstan and Iraq, which each have significant overproduction to compensate for through the middle of next year. "This measure will provide an opportunity for the participating countries to accelerate their compensation," the secretariat said. This group of eight is due to next meet on 1 June to review market conditions and decide on July production levels. By Nader Itayim, Aydin Calik and Bachar Halabi Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

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