Repsol starts renewable fuel production at Puertollano plant
Repsol began renewable fuel production at Puertollano, adding 200,000 tons a year and pushing its Spanish output near half a million tons.
Repsol on June 1 started production at its Puertollano industrial complex in Ciudad Real, adding 200,000 tons per year of 100% renewable fuel capacity and lifting the company’s renewable-fuels base in Spain to nearly 500,000 tons a year when combined with its 250,000-ton Cartagena plant. The new unit is Repsol’s second dedicated renewable-fuels facility on the Iberian Peninsula and marks another conversion of an existing refinery asset into waste-based fuel production.
The company said it invested more than €130 million to retrofit the plant so it can process used cooking oil and other agri-food waste streams. Repsol said the project will avoid about 700,000 tons of CO2 emissions a year over the fuel’s life cycle, a figure that underscores the carbon advantage the company is using to justify the shift from fossil feedstocks to circular, drop-in fuels.
The launch extends Repsol’s Iberian buildout after Cartagena came online in 2024 as the first plant of its kind on the peninsula. Repsol spent €250 million on that site, which has capacity for 250,000 tons per year and uses about 300,000 tons of organic waste, including used cooking oil, as feedstock. Repsol says more than 1,000 direct and indirect professionals were involved in the Cartagena start-up.
Puertollano also reflects the company’s technology strategy. Repsol licensed Honeywell Ecofining technology for the project in October 2023, and Honeywell said the plant was designed to convert about 240,000 metric tons per year of waste feeds into renewable diesel and other products. Repsol says the fuel, marketed as Nexa Diesel, is already available through more than 1,600 Repsol service stations in Spain and Portugal, giving the company a ready route to market without building a new distribution network.
Antonio Lorenzo, Repsol’s Puertollano complex director, said the project strengthens Spain’s energy independence, creates quality jobs and moves the site closer to becoming a leading industrial hub for the circular economy and renewable fuels. For the wider market, the start-up shows how incumbent refiners are using existing infrastructure to scale waste-based diesel production while feedstock access and project economics become the main constraints on the next wave of capacity.
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