Repsol to develop two cutting-edge renewable fuel projects in Spain

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Type of post: NEWS IN BRIEF.

The CEO of Repsol, Josu Jon Imaz, has presented two pioneering industrial decarbonization projects that the company will undertake with the participation of prominent Spanish and international partners. The facilities, to be located in the port of Bilbao and its surrounding area as a first option, will represent a combined initial investment of approximately 80 M€. Both initiatives -innovative, sustainable, and generating high added-value- represent an important impetus to technological and industrial development that is essential in the current context of economic recovery.
Press release: “Repsol to develop two major emissions-reductions projects in Spain”, 15/6/2020.
Related posts: "Repsol intends to build a plant to produce 2G biofuels in its Cartagena complex", 20/5/2019.

Synthetic fuel plant

The first project, in which 60 M€ will initially be invested, involves building one of the largest net zero emissions synthetic fuel production plants in the world, based on green hydrogen generated with renewable energy. The fuels are produced using water and CO2 as the only raw materials. They can be used in conventional combustion engines.

Repsol’s partners include Petronor, one of Spain’s principal industrial centres; and the Energy Agency of the Basque Government (EVE), a public-sector leader in the energy transition. The facility, which will be fully operational within four years, will set a new benchmark in Europe thanks to the cutting-edge technology applied and the use of CO2 captured in the nearby Petronor refinery. Its development represents a first-order technological challenge that will be led by the Repsol Technology Lab research center.

In the first phase, which will be scalable in a later commercial stage depending on the results obtained, 50 barrels of synthetic fuel will be produced per day, with net zero emissions of CO2 in the entire production cycle. Conceptual engineering will begin this year. Petronor is the only refinery in the Iberian Peninsula and one of few in Europe that has integrated the process of capture, storage, and use of CO2, and it is expected to be able to capture the CO2 directly from the air.

Figure 1. Infographics of the synthetic fuel plant (taken from the press release)

Pyrolysis plant

The second project, which will be located next to the first one, also with the port of Bilbao and its surrounding area as the priority option, will represent an initial investment of 20 M€. Led by Petronor, it will consist of a plant for generation of gas from urban waste. The generated gas will be used to replace part of the traditional fuels that the Basque refinery, one of the largest in Spain, currently uses in its production process.

In its first stage, this pyrolysis plant will be able to process around 10,000 tons of urban waste a year, and its capacity could be increased in later stages to approximately 100,000 tons a year, equivalent to all the urban waste produced in the surrounding area.

Figure 2. Infographics of the pyrolysis plant (taken from the press release)

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