Chemical giant Repsol building new PP, PE plants in Portugal

In what’s being described as the largest industrial investment in Portugal in the last ten years, petrochemicals giant Repsol has announced that it will invest 657 million euros, or US$777 million, to build two new plants for the production of 100 per cent recyclable polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) at the Sines Industrial Complex, located about 150 km south of Lisbon.

Scheduled to be operational by 2025, the project additionally will include construction of new logistics installations to enable use of rail transport for improving the complex’s connection to European markets and reducing its carbon-related emissions during transportation of products, according to Repsol.

The facilities employ market-leading technologies for linear PE and PP production and are the first of their kind on the Iberian peninsula, Repsol said. Each plant will have the capacity to produce 300,000 tons per year for applications aligned with energy transition in the pharmaceutical, automotive, and food industries.

The plants are part of Repsol’s 2021-2025 Strategic Plan, which calls for a total investment of 18.3 billion euros, or US$21.6 billion, between 2021 and 2025 and includes numerous projects to evolve its industrial area, which is already highly competitive and holds a leading position in Europe.

Repsol is headquartered in Madrid, Spain. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Repsol was ranked as the 645th-largest public company in the world. It has more than 24,000 employees worldwide.