Tarragona, key so that planes do not stay on the ground

TarragonaA large part of the world looks with concern towards the Strait of Hormuz, the passage that connects the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean and through which a fifth of the hydrocarbons that reached the international market passed before the United States and Israel decided to attack Iran. Hydrocarbons are the basis of fossil fuels (oil and natural gas) and, currently, are essential for generating energy and manufacturing plastics. Many European countries fear that if the war continues and the blockade of the strait persists, as well as attacks on refineries and petrochemical plants in the Middle East, oil derivatives such as kerosene, which powers airplanes, may begin to run out. Faced with this situation, in Spain, eyes are not focused far away, but rather on the eight refineries of Repsol, BP, and Moeve that are still operational – among them, the one in the Tarragona petrochemical complex – which have become a breath of fresh air in the face of the threat of hydrocarbon shortages.

There are two key factors in this advantage that Spain has over other European countries. The first depends on the origin of the oil: 60% of the crude oil that supplies the eight Spanish refineries comes from America (from countries such as the United States, Brazil, or Mexico), 30% from Africa (Nigeria and Libya), and only 7% comes from the Middle East, so the blockade of the strait that has put the whole world on guard has a lesser impact on Spanish supply. At the Tarragona refinery, for example, no crude oil arrives from the Middle East, but mainly from Libya. The second factor is the commitment to having maintained and updated the refineries with strong investments, while many other countries were closing them down. The president of Repsol, Antoni Brufau, recalled this Thursday before the general shareholders' meeting that in just fifteen years, 35 refineries have been closed across Europe.

Crude oil arrives by sea to the refineries which, through a distillation process, transform it into other derivatives. In the current context, one of the most important – and one that most concerns the continent – is kerosene, the fuel that powers airplanes. 80% of the kerosene consumed in Spain is produced by Spanish refineries, according to sources from the Spanish Fuel Industry Association, and 76% of the diesel fuel consumed is also produced within the State's borders. Gasoline is even exported.

Kerosene and diesel

According to an estimate made by the Repsol company, approximately 40% of gas oils, a little more than 16% of kerosene, 15% of gasoline, 7% of fuel oil, 2% of liquefied gases, and almost 20% of other products are obtained from a barrel of oil. "Right now, at Repsol we are implementing measures to increase the production of gas oil and kerosene in view of the current international context," explained the director of Repsol in Tarragona, Jesús Sancho, who highlights the "high degree of conversion" that Repsol refineries have, which can adapt to market demand.

In the year 2025, Repsol refined 37.3 million tons of oil in Spain, representing more than 60% of Spain's total refining. In years like the current one, without scheduled shutdowns for plant maintenance, up to 9 million tons of crude oil can be processed from the Tarragona refinery. With this volume, up to 1.4 million tons of kerosene can be obtained, which would allow an airplane to fly 16,200 times from Barcelona to New York. At the same time, according to company sources, up to 4.1 million tons of gas oil can be produced from the processed crude oil.