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 SPAIN
North West Europe
Spain has limited domestic oil and gas reserves
although state-owned Repsol-YPF, Spain`s largest oil company, is active
worldwide. Until 1993, the Spanish oil industry was wholly
state-controlled and Repsol still dominates the oil and gas sector,
owning the majority of Spain’s refineries and its distribution network.
 Compania
Espanola de Petroleos (Cepsa), established in 1929, is Spain’s oldest
private oil and gas company. Repsol acquired YPF, the largest oil
company in Argentina, in 1999.
The first producing oil field in Spain came onstream in
1965. The country has 6 major oil fields. The Ayoluengo field in the
Cantabrian basin of onshore northern Spain produces from Upper Jurassic
sandstones and limestones. Production peaked in around 1970.
Several small oil fields lie 30 kms offshore from
Tarragona in the Mediterranean Sea in the Ebro Delta. The Casablanca
complex, comprising the Casablanca, Rodaballo, and Boqueron fields, with
Tertiary and Late Cretaceous reservoirs, produced 56,000 Bbls per day at
peak in 1983 but have declined significantly. These fields supplied feed
to Repsol`s 180,000 Bbls per day Tarragona refinery.
 The Casablanca platform came onstream in 1972 and had
been due to be decommissioned but, in 1999, Repsol discovered an oil
accumulation (Chiperon) nearby with the potential to produce 7,000 Bbls
per day. A subsea wellhead connected to the Casablanca platform via a 10
km pipeline was installed, with production beginning in 2001. Sherritt
also discovered the small Barracuda field in 2000 but Spain has few
other prospects.
Domestic gas resources are also very limited. Spain’s
largest gas field, Gaviota, is located 10 km off the northern coast in
the Bay of Biscay and has a fractured carbonate reservoir of Upper
Cretaceous age. It was discovered in 1980 and produced gas and small
amounts of condensate from 1986 to 1996. In order to delay
abandonment, it was transformed into a Gas Storage Reservoir. Minor gas
is also produced from the Guadalquivir basin in SW Spain.
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CAPITAL
Madrid
Population
40.4 million
Onshore area
(000's sq kms)
504.8
Offshore area
(000's sq kms)
NEW
OIL PEAK YEAR
1983 |
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