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Spain Petroleum
Although oil continued to be Spain's major source of
energy,
it had diminished in importance significantly since 1973.
Oil
consumption grew steadily between 1973 and 1979, reaching
50
million tons in that last year, but by 1985 it had
declined to 39
million tons. Oil accounted for two-thirds of the
country's
primary energy requirements throughout the 1970s, but by
the mid1980s the figure had dropped to just over half. In 1985
alone,
Spanish industry saved 40 billion pesetas (US$260 million)
by
replacing 500,00 tons of oil consumption with coal and
natural
gas.
In 1985 Mexico, responsible for 19.7 percent of Spain's
petroleum imports, was the largest single supplier of
Spain's
energy needs, and in the mid-1980s Latin American
countries
provided Spain with about one-quarter of its imported oil.
Africa's share--Nigeria being the most important
supplier--
dropped from 36.5 percent in 1985 to 29.3 percent in 1987.
Middle
Eastern countries provided 27.4 percent in 1985 and 29.6
percent
in 1987. Western Europe's share rose from 10.6 percent in
1985 to
16.5 percent in 1987. Efforts were under way to lessen
Spain's
dependence on Middle Eastern oil and to increase imports
from
Mexico.
In the 1980s, imported petroleum entered Spain via
eight
ports. The three largest, in terms of vessel capacity,
were
Algeciras (330,000 deadweight tons), Malaga (330,000
tons), and
Cartagena (260,000 tons).
Spain possessed a small domestic oil production
capability
that yielded only 1.6 million tons in 1987. Despite a
sizable
exploration effort, only a few small fields and two
medium-sized
ones were discovered. The Casablanca oil field, discovered
in
1983, yielded 90 percent of Spain's domestic oil
production in
1987, but it was not large enough to offset an overall
decline in
Spanish production. The fall in oil prices in the 1980s
further
reduced the country's exploration efforts.
The Spanish oil industry imported and refined foreign
crude
petroleum; it distributed petrochemical products within
Spain;
and, in the mid-1980s, it exported about 10 million tons
of
finished petroleum products per year.
As with some other sectors of the Spanish economy, the
domestic oil industry had been brought under state
control.
Distribution of petroleum products had been in the hands
of the
state monopoly, Compania Arrendataria del Monopolio de
Petroleos
(CAMPSA), since 1927, and large portions of the shipping
and
refining system were state owned. To rationalize the
petroleum
industry and to make it able to withstand foreign
competition,
the National Institute for Hydrocarbons (Instituto
Nacional de
Hidrocarburos--INH) was formed in 1981 in order to direct
CAMPSA
and those parts of the oil, gas, and petrochemical
industry
supervised by INI. By the mid-1980s, INH was responsible
for more
than 1 percent of the Spanish GDP, and it claimed 20,000
employees. To prepare for Spain's entry into the EC, after
which
state monopolies were required to be phased out, all of
INH's
holdings, with the exception of the state gas company,
Empresa
Nacional del Gas (ENAGAS), were placed under a new holding
company in the late 1980s. The company, Repsol, which had
a stock
market listing, was gradually to allow a greater role for
private
capital in the petroleum industry. By 1988 Repsol had
become
Western Europe's seventh largest petroleum company, and
its
management planned to continue to control about half of
the
Spanish market once that market was fully opened to
foreign firms
in 1992. EC membership rendered CAMPSA's future uncertain,
for it
would no longer be allowed its distribution monopoly. The
Treaty
of Accession that brought Spain into the EC stipulated
that
specific amounts of nine groups of petroleum products from
foreign suppliers would have access to the Spanish market.
In
1986 these products were to have a 5 percent share of the
domestic market--a share that was to increase by 20
percent (of
this 5 percent) each year thereafter.
Data as of December 1988
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