Spanish petrochemicals producer Repsol has licensed the Chevron Phillips Chemical (CPChem) process to produce metallocene-based LDPE resin at its complex in Tarragona.

The plant, for which neither start-up date nor capacity have been given, will be the first outside the US to use the process.

Repsol said the investment is part of a competitive enhancement scheme to run until 2016. Upgrading capacity, the Madrid-based company said, will allow it to focus on higher value-added products. This in turn, will enable it to better compete with imports from countries in which producers have access to cheap feedstocks.

According to Repsol's estimate, imports of HDPE, for example, accounted for more than 40% of consumption in Spain in 2014.

As the new LDPE facility shares "critical facilities and equipment" with the HDPE plant, thus requiring a temporary shutdown of the latter, and construction is expected to take three months, Repsol is splitting the construction process into two one-and-a-half month phases. The first will begin in June of this year.