Some Data on Spain’s Chemical Sector

The following table shows 2017 revenues, products produced, the number of employees (2017), and other data for seven Spanish-owned (and headquartered in Spain) chemical companies:

chemical company	revenues (millions of euros)	products produced	number of employees	private or public
repsol	43,448	fuels; petrochemicals	25,085	public
cepsa	18,211	fuels; petrochemicals	11,000	private
ercros	694	pvc, caustic acid, polyols, paraformaldehyde, potash, chloride, fusidic acid, glues & resins	1,372	public
fertiberia	531	agricultural (fertilizers); industrial (ammonia, urea, nitric acid	770	public
elix polymers	220	abs resin and derivatives	288	private
suan farma	?	products for the pharmaceutical, veterinary, nutritional, and cosmetic industries	425	private
minersa group	?	fluorspar, fluoro chemicals, sodium sulphate, special clays, anhydrous calcium sulphate, salts	?	private

An extensive search of the Internet could not find such data on other Spanish-owned chemical companies, perhaps because none exist of the size represented by the companies in the table.  Many foreign-owned chemical companies of comparable size operate in Spain, such as operations conducted by Dow, BASF, and Clariant.

The largest concentration of chemical companies (chemical company clusters) in Spain are in Tarragona (by far the largest) and Huelva.   The following table gives the approximate areas (in square kilometers) of these cluster, measured using Google Maps (satellite view).  Also in the table are approximate measurements for chemical clusters in several other countries.

cluster	square kilometers
jubail saudi arabia	90
antwerp	64
houston	62
asaluyeh iran	52
yanbu saudi arabia	49
mahshahr iran	45
rotterdam	32
kizhnekamsk russia	31
singapore (jurong island)	29
kstovo russia	13
tarragona spain	13
huelva spain	4

The table shows that that the Tarragona cluster is relatively small compared to the largest chemical clusters.  About 50% of Spain’s chemical production (about 80 million metric tons, all of Spain in 2017) is in Catalonia, where Tarragona is located.

2017 chemical sector revenues were around 63 billion Euros, about 12.5% of Spain’s GDP.  Spain’s chemical industrial sector is the 2^nd largest sector in Spain.   The chemical sector is forecasted to grow at a 4.5% CAGR until 2030.  Approximately 55% of chemical production is exported.  The sector benefits from Spain’s location on the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean.