One of the largest energy companies, present in the entire value chain: exploration and production, transformation, development and commercialization of efficient, sustainable and competitive energy.
We are a multi-energy company operating around the globe. Our activities range from oil and gas exploration and production to refining as well as selling derived products and providing services for your everyday life, such as natural gas and electricity.
The people on our team represent our prime competitive advantage and guarantee the company's future. A flexible and committed team comprising over 25,000 employees, united by a shared vision and values.
Our facilities are a reflection of our values and company culture. Our smart buildings promote smooth communication and transparency between team members, while allowing them to be more efficient and versatile in their work.
Our brand reflects our efficient, modern, responsible, and transparent management style which characterizes our company. Moreover, it conveys our values and builds trust.
A global, integrated company with over 90 years of history seeking to supply society's energy needs.
At Repsol, we ensure integrity in the relationships the Company maintains with its suppliers and contractors. Our suppliers are a part of our team and working together enables us to continuously evolve.
We look for energy solutions that meet people's needs and safeguard their well-being. With our solid and diversified business undertakings, we stay one step ahead of the future.
Learn about our Company's annual performance in the area of sustainability.
Our priority is to minimize the environmental impact of our activities by optimizing water management, air emissions, waste management, and spill prevention and response, in addition to considering biodiversity a key element.
We work to be part of the solution to climate change. Our challenge: responding to the demand for energy both responsibly and sustainably.
Each and every one of our decisions aims to guarantee the safety of our workers, customers, users, and suppliers. We firmly believe that all accidents can be prevented, and we develop ever-improving prevention mechanisms.
Each and every one of the actions taken by the people who make up Repsol determine the present and the future of our company. Therefore, we train our employees in core values that must govern their behavior and communicate all of our actions in a way that's reliable, transparent, and verifiable.
We are committed to managing our tax affairs by applying good practices and acting transparently. We pay our taxes responsibly and efficiently, and we foster cooperation with governments, thus avoiding serious risks and unnecessary conflicts.
We make reasonable efforts to ensure that our activities do not have negative impact on human rights, and should they occur, we do everything we can to correct them. Moreover, we do everything within our power to prevent impacts directly related to the activities of our business relationships.
Sustainability is an essential part of our forward-looking vision and the shared commitment undertaken by every one of us at Repsol.
The Repsol Technology Lab is an example of one of the most cutting-edge private R&D models in Spain, based on open innovation, whose objective is to seek sustainable solutions to achieve a more efficient and competitive lower-carbon business.
Innovation is in our DNA. That's why we've taken on the ambitious challenge of transforming the energy sector through the passion of our professionals, people who question things to make them better.
We look for industrial startups that provide disruptive reliability and maintenance solutions, particularly those related to the prediction and detection of corrosion.
Innovation, open collaboration, and a connection with the entrepreneurial world within an environment designed for co-creation. Discover our Open Innovation program.
At Repsol, innovation is part of our DNA. That's why we support education in the technical science field in order to inspire future generations.
Soluciones energéticas 100% renovables: energía solar y electricidad para particulares, empresas y entidades públicas.
Global, integrated, sustainable, and present throughout the entire value chain. These are just some of the compelling attributes that make us as an attractive company.
Useful documents to follow the company's profitability and sustainability-related measures and initiatives.
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Renewable and low-carbon hydrogen can become high-potential energy vectors with uses in industry, mobility, or the electrical system, as long as there is an appropriate regulatory framework in place that permits the development of these types of projects and allows for them to be profitable. Repsol is working on different technological options to generate these forms of hydrogen in a competitive way.
"It is estimated that once they are developed in all their potential applications, renewable and low-carbon hydrogen could together make up 10 to 20% of the global energy consumption," explains Elena Verdú, Senior Process Development Scientist at Repsol’s Technology Lab. This is why, "in our commitment to the energy transition, we have a clear focus on developing these production technologies.”
Among the advantages of renewable and low-carbon hydrogen is the versatility of their energy uses. They constitute a more sustainable alternative to the traditional hydrogen that is used in industrial processes, mainly in the production of ammonia and oil refining. In Repsol’s case, renewable hydrogen will serve as a raw material for the production of synthetic fuels with net zero emissions at the plant that Repsol is planning to build in the port of Bilbao.
Renewable and low-carbon hydrogen can also be used at a large scale to store all the excess renewable energy that will be produced as the market share of these types of energy increases. The costs of renewable electricity will, predictably, be very low when generation exceeds demand, and this could be used to generate hydrogen at a competitive price.
In the area of mobility, the hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle is one of the options to decarbonize mainly heavy road transport.
At present, Repsol is both the leading producer and the main consumer of hydrogen in Spain at the company’s industrial complexes that are among the most important in the country. Hydrogen is a key component in its refining processes. It is used in desulfurization and hydrocracking treatments that improve the performance and the environmental quality of the refined fuels.
Today, the most frequently used production technology for traditional hydrogen is natural gas steam reforming. The search for solutions to reduce the carbon intensity of the production of this hydrogen is one of the priorities of Repsol's Technology Area.
A potential way of reducing it is low-carbon hydrogen", produced by reforming steam using fossil raw materials, but including systems to capture the CO2 associated with the process.
It is expected that this process can become competitive before other alternatives. "The development of the different applications of low-carbon hydrogen would make it possible for the infrastructures and the market to be more mature and consolidated when renewable hydrogen reaches competitiveness," explains Elena Verdú.
One of the technologies to produce renewable hydrogen is water-based electrolysis, "which consists in the splitting of the water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen through the application of electrical energy. Whenever this electricity comes from a renewable energy source, the hydrogen produced has zero CO2 emissions," continues Verdú.
Electrolysis with renewable electrical energy will be applied to produce the renewable hydrogen that will be used along with captured CO2 to create the synthetic fuels with net zero emissions that Repsol will produce at the future plant in Bilbao.
Another alternative that Repsol is considering is to produce renewable hydrogen through the traditional process, but swapping the fossil raw material for material from a biological source, like biomethane. This biomethane is obtained from the treatment of biological waste, sewage sludge, domestic organic waste, and industrial or biomass waste. This option makes it possible to continue using the existing plants.
There is also progress in production systems through photoelectrocatalysis which involves direct conversion of solar energy and water to produce renewable hydrogen. "Using this system, we could obtain a renewable hydrogen that is competitive and uses less energy," because its main advantage compared to electrolysis "is that no electricity is used, and it, therefore, does not depend on the electricity price. This results in a significant operational cost reduction.”
Repsol is developing its own photoelectrocatalysis technology to produce hydrogen from solar energy. This project is being conducted together with Enagás, and several leading research centers - such as the Catalan Institute for Energy Research, the University of Alicante, and the Aragon Hydrogen Foundation - also participate in the initiative.
The expansion of the uses of renewable and low-carbon hydrogen can also contribute to the decarbonization of road mobility. Here these applications could meet the demand of hydrogen powered fuel cell vehicles, a technology that, once fully developed, "is expected to be complementary to battery electric vehicles, especially in heavy-goods and long-distance transportation." Additionally, synthetic fuels produced with renewable hydrogen "will be essential to decarbonizing sectors that are difficult to electrify, such as maritime or air transportation," notes Elena Verdú.
Hydrogen is also an ally of renewable electricity generation, as energy storage at times when generation exceeds demand. This excess energy can be transformed into renewable hydrogen through electrolysis and stored.
Furthermore, the stored energy can be used to generate electricity again (power to power), but it can also be destined to industrial uses, to the generation of both electricity and heat in the domestic sector or used as fuel for mobility.
Among the challenges for renewable hydrogen to take off are the production costs that are currently higher than those of traditional hydrogen. “In the case of electrolysis production, the most decisive factor is the price of electricity," which makes up 70-75% of the costs, explains Verdú. The expected development of the electrolysis techniques will "reduce the investment and increase their efficiency.”
Even so, to ensure that the hydrogen-based solutions can become truly competitive, one of the key conditions will be the development of an appropriate regulatory framework. Building on the Roadmap approved by the Spanish Government Cabinet on October 6 this year, the framework should facilitate the development of these types of projects and allow them to reach the necessary thresholds of profitability. “Only this way can a true expansion of these technologies take place,” concludes Elena Verdú.