Portfolio Planning PLUS provides a comprehensive overview of refining and petrochemical activities in every world' s country. Screenshot shows Spanish refineries via the platform's refining module.
Portfolio Planning PLUS | April 30, 2025
A massive power outage swept across Spain and Portugal on April 28, forcing all major Spanish refineries and several petrochemical plants into an emergency shutdown. The blackout, which struck at around 12:30 CET, caused an abrupt drop of over 10GW from the Spanish electricity grid, disrupting industrial complexes, halting metro and rail services, and even grounding flights across the region
- All five of Repsol’s Spanish refineries-representing a combined refining capacity of 890,000 barrels of crude oil per day-were compelled to cease operations, alongside the company’s petrochemical plants in Tarragona and Puertollano.
- Moeve, another key Spanish refiner with 464,000 barrels per day of refining capacity, also shut down its Algeciras and Huelva refineries, as well as two petrochemical plants in southern Spain.
- Dow Chemical Spain’s Tarragona industrial complex was similarly affected, and emergency flaring was observed at some sites as part of safety protocols during the shutdown.
Following the restoration of power from late on April 28, refinery operators began the complex process of restarting their facilities. According to Repsol, crude oil crude distillation units require about three days to come back online, while secondary conversion units, including hydrocrackers, may take up to a week to resume normal operations. The company confirmed that its Bilbao refinery was the first to restart, aided by electricity imports from France, and emphasized that no significant damage occurred during the outage.
Moeve and other operators are also in the process of progressively bringing their plants back online, though none have specified when output will return to pre-outage levels.
The outage has prompted Spain’s petroleum reserves corporation Cores to temporarily relax strategic reserve requirements, reducing the obligation by four days to help mitigate potential supply disruptions. Meanwhile, Exolum, the country’s main pipeline and storage operator, reported that its infrastructure is functioning normally and that essential services and airports continued to receive fuel throughout the blackout
While most industrial activity is expected to recover within a week, the incident has highlighted the vulnerability of Spain’s energy infrastructure and the critical importance of grid stability for the country’s refining and petrochemical sectors.
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Kokel, Nicolas
