REPSOL RDI

Repsol’s RDI expenditures in the areas of alternative energies, natural gas liquefaction, oil refining and petrochemicals in the company’s European R&D facilities.

The project concerns the Promoter’s corporate investment in Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) to support its new technology strategy in some of its key areas. Research activities included in the project have been selected to be in line with the Banks priority objectives in knowledge-economy and the Energy sector and will be divided into four areas. The “New Energies” program aims at the development of products and technology in bioenergy and enabling facilities for the use of renewable energies for transport. The LNG program includes the optimisation of natural gas liquefaction. The “Downstream” program focuses on the optimisation of refining operations. Last, the chemistry program aims at the development of new petrochemical products, process optimisation for cost and energy saving and the development of renewable base products.

The project concerns investment in research and development activities which are expected to be carried out in existing, already authorised, R&D facilities that will not change their scope due to the project; an EIA is therefore not needed as per EIA Directive 2011/92/EC. The Bank’s services will further investigate all the environmental details during the due diligence.

The Bank will require the promoter to ensure that contracts for the implementation of the RDI activities that fall under the provisions of Directive 2004/17/EEC have been/will be tendered in accordance with the relevant applicable EU procurement legislation (2004/17/EEC and 2007/66/EC), with publication of contract notices in the EU Official Journal, as and where appropriate.

The project may be financed under the Risk Sharing Finance Facility (RSFF), which is an innovative credit risk sharing scheme jointly set up by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank to improve access to debt financing for private companies or public institutions promoting activities with a higher financial risk profile in the fields of research, technological development, demonstration and innovation investments.