Repsol YPF

Repsol YPF's History of R+D in Spain

In 1942, the Spanish National Enterprise Calvo Sotelo (the first of the companies in Spain that would eventually form part of Repsol YPF) was created. It was conceived as an industrial energy company, with its basis in coal and oil, that aimed not to depend on other countries for its supplies and technology. In accordance with this last aim, it was decided to create a central laboratory in Madrid. In 1944, the decision was made to build the Research Centre in the calle Embajadores, in Madrid.

Over the course of the 1940s, the Research Centre took charge of an ever increasing number of projects and investigations relating to the distillation of shale and the manufacture of fertilisers.

From the 1950s onwards, the Centre focused its efforts on optimising processes and developing the products to be obtained from the shale oils from Puertollano. In addition to this, the project of the industrial centre in Cartagena had also begun its own activities.

In the 1960s, the Centre was extended considerably and was equipped with a new test station for lubricants and fuels and an experimental refinery (replica of the fractioning, refining and dewaxing processes). The Centre progressively began to diversify its activities, focusing particularly on the field of petrochemicals.    

Between 1966 and 1975, six new refineries were built in Spain, taking advantage of the economic boom, and the capacity of the existing refineries was also increased. In 1974, Enpetrol was created (Calvo Sotelo + Entasa + Repesa, with refineries in Puertollano, Tarragona and Cartagena, respectively), which meant that the work of the two previously independent research centres, in Madrid and Cartagena, was also amalgamated.

In 1986, the company Repsol was born from the embryo of the Instituto Nacional de Hidrocarburos - National Hydrocarbon Institute (INH). In 1989, its privatisation began, which was completed in 1997. In 1995, all of the Research, Development and Technical Assistance activities of the Repsol Group were integrated into one sole Technology Department.

Fifty years have gone by since the first steps were taken in Spain in the field of hydrocarbon R+D and the number of staff has gone from the 12 people that started work for the National Enterprise Calvo Sotelo in the 1940s to the over 300 current technology staff in Spain. 

In the year 2002, the new Spanish Technology Centre was inaugurated in Móstoles (Madrid). The new Centre brings together on one site all of the Research, Technical Assistance and Development activities carried out by Repsol YPF in Spain, which were previously carried out in the Centres of Embajadores and Villaverde, in Madrid, and Escombreras, in Cartagena.