Within the Repsol Group, Repsol Qu�mica is firmly orientated to manufacturing and commercialising derivative chemical products.

Repsol Qu�mica is the new official company name for Alcudia. In 1986, the companies founded by the Spanish state-owned sector (National Institute of Industry) in the 1960s, namely Calatrava, Montoro and Paular, were merged into Alcudia.

Repsol Qu�mica has had to compete in a new and more severe competitive framework following Spain's joining the European Union, and the Uruguay Round commitments have further forced the emergence of a strategy based on concentration and growth in those business areas more integrated in refining, in cost reduction and in production optimisation. All this is the logical consequence of taking advantage of the economies of scale.

Repsol Qu�mica carries out its activities in an area where the European chemicals industry is world-leader, having reached 32% of total global business in this sector in 1995. The United States and Japan follow, holding respectively, 25% and 17%. Within this enormously competitive framework, in wich the first three chemical companies world-wide, according to business figures, are European, and in which 18 of the 30 main companies world-wide are located in this economic area, Repsol Qu�mica is first amongstt those established in Spain.

The nominal manufacturing capacity of the average company is greater than 1.5 million tonnes/year. Repsol Qu�mica's business figure was Ptas. 135 billion (ECUS 850 million) in 1996 and of this more than 50% was attributable to business outside Spain. These figures highlight Repsol Qu�mica's importance, not only in the Spanish scenario, but also, in the far larger European market. In the latter, Repsol Qu�mica may be regarded as a natural and regular supplier with sufficient specific bearing on all markets and applications. A firm commitment to the field of research, technological development and cost optimisation, enables Repsol Qu�mica to sustain competitiveness with a wide range of products. These are increasing every year by the continuous addition of added-value speciality chemical products.

Challenges for the Chemical Industry

For more than 150 years, chemical products have been manufactured industrially in Europe and this has improved our standard of living through the enormous benefits to foodstuff, safety and health.

Repsol Qu�mica in Spain, as inheritor of the pioneering petrochemical companies, plays an active role in that endeavour to improve the wellbeing of society without overlooking, that not only does the company have to offer improved products of greater quality, but these also have to be cleaner and safer products. Repsol Qu�mica's undertaking to the chemical industries' world programme Responsible Care, is no more than the recognition that safety at work and safeguarding the environment are principal among the company's strategic objetives.