Spanish energy company Moeve and Portugal’s Galp have ended negotiations over a potential combination of their downstream businesses in the Iberian Peninsula after failing to agree on definitive terms that met their strategic and financial requirements.
The companies announced a non-binding agreement on 8 January 2026 to explore combining selected industrial and retail operations through two separate platforms. The proposed transaction was intended to strengthen their market positions, improve scale and investment capacity, and support the development of lower-carbon energy businesses.
The decision leaves both companies to pursue their existing businesses and energy-transition investments independently.
Proposed deal would have combined refining and retail operations
The negotiations covered two potential joint ventures: an industrial platform bringing together refining, chemicals and related activities, and a retail platform combining service-station and mobility businesses.
Under the original proposal, the industrial platform would have integrated Galp’s Sines refinery in Portugal with Moeve’s refineries at Huelva and Algeciras in Spain. The combined facilities would have had crude-processing capacity of approximately 700,000 barrels per day.
The proposed retail platform would have operated around 3,500 service stations, primarily across Spain and Portugal. The companies had presented the structure as a way to strengthen competitiveness and improve their capacity to invest in evolving energy and mobility markets.
However, the parties ultimately failed to reach an agreement that satisfied their respective strategic and financial criteria. Neither company’s announcement establishes a definitive single reason for the breakdown in negotiations.
Moeve maintains focus on green hydrogen and advanced biofuels
Moeve said the proposed combination was an opportunity to accelerate value creation, rather than a prerequisite for its Positive Motion strategy. Chief executive Maarten Wetselaar reaffirmed the company’s commitment to its standalone transformation, with a focus on green energy and sustainable mobility.
The company’s current energy-transition programme includes several major industrial projects.
Moeve has begun construction of a green hydrogen project with an initial planned capacity of 300 MW and an investment exceeding €1 billion, according to the company’s announcement. The project forms part of its broader ambition to develop low-carbon energy production and supply.
Moeve is also progressing with a second-generation (2G) biofuels complex in Palos de la Frontera, Huelva, with an announced investment of €1.2 billion. Operations are scheduled to begin in 2027.
The company says the facility is expected to produce more than 1.5 million tonnes of 2G biofuels annually once operational, including sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), renewable diesel and biogas. Moeve describes it as the largest 2G biofuels industrial complex in Southern Europe once it starts operating.
Moeve also said it has divested more than 70% of its oil exploration and production assets and is allocating two-thirds of its investments to industrial energy-transition projects. These figures are based on the company’s own announcement.
Galp to pursue its downstream and energy-transition plans independently
The end of negotiations also leaves Galp’s refining, chemicals and retail operations under its existing ownership structure. The Portuguese company said the outcome does not affect its current operations or its view of the standalone value-creation potential of its downstream portfolio.
Galp continues to highlight energy-transition investments at Sines, including a green hydrogen electrolyser project and an advanced biofuels unit. Its broader strategy also includes upstream oil and gas production, renewable energy and trading activities.
The abandoned deal therefore does not mean that the two companies have halted their energy-transition programmes. Instead, the projects will continue within their respective corporate strategies, without the proposed downstream joint ventures.
Bioenergy Business Analysis
The collapse of the Moeve–Galp negotiations removes a potential route to greater industrial scale for two major Iberian energy companies. The proposed combination would have brought together refining assets, retail networks and low-carbon energy projects, potentially creating a larger platform for investment in renewable fuels and hydrogen.
For the biofuels market, Moeve’s standalone plans remain particularly significant. Its second-generation biofuels complex in Huelva is scheduled to begin operations in 2027 and is intended to produce SAF, renewable diesel and biogas from non-conventional feedstocks. If delivered as planned, the facility could add substantial industrial-scale production capacity for renewable fuels in Southern Europe.
The key question is whether Moeve and Galp can advance their respective projects with sufficient capital, operational execution and market demand without the additional scale that the proposed combination was intended to provide. The end of negotiations does not, by itself, establish that either company’s investment plans will change.
For renewable-fuel producers and buyers, the next milestones to watch are construction progress, commissioning schedules, production capacity and the development of reliable offtake markets. These factors will be more informative indicators of the companies’ energy-transition progress than the abandoned transaction alone.
