Spain’s chems sales up 14% in 2021 on selling prices but input costs harm margins

LONDON (ICIS)–Spain’s chemicals sales, including pharmaceuticals, are expected to reach nearly €74bn in 2021, up 14% year on year, but the increases in selling prices were partly offset by high input costs, the country’s trade group FEIQUE said on Wednesday.

Production is expected to close the year 4.7% higher than in 2020.

Companies found difficult to pass onto customers “all of the increases” they had to face in input costs, said FEIQUE.

The trade group said that the “very intense” high demand in 2021, this has been offset by factors such high raw materials prices, higher logistics costs, supply chain bottlenecks globally and, particularly, high prices for electricity which is putting a strain on energy-intensive industries like chemicals.

Spain chemicals	2021	2020	Change
Sales	€73,631m	€64,519m	14.1%
– Of which exports	€41,410m	€36,570m	13.2%

Speaking at FEIQUE’s annual assembly in Madrid, president Carles Navarro, who is also the director general for BASF in Spain and Portugal, said high energy prices in Spain are jeopardising chemicals’ competitiveness.

Those high prices could even endanger the fight against climate change, added Navarro, if the industry is not able to adapt to greener ways of producing.

“Currently, the final price of electricity for a Spanish electro-intensive consumer is 145% higher than in France, and 44% more expensive than in Germany,” said FEIQUE.

“The most effective measure [for chemicals] would be to get compensation from 80% of the money they spend on taxes within the electricity distribution system, which is a measure both France and Germany have had in place for years.”