Business 26 October 2026

Galp and Moeve walk away from their Iberian refining and fuel-station merger

Ten months after a non-binding deal in January, Galp told the market that talks with Moeve's owners, Mubadala and Carlyle, ended with no agreement. The Sines refinery and Galp's station network stay as they are.

Galp’s refineries and forecourts will not be joining Moeve’s after all. The Portuguese company said on Monday, 26 October, that its talks with Spain’s Moeve about merging their refining and fuel retail businesses ended with no agreement, after what the Portuguese company called extensive negotiations.

The plan dated back to 8 January, when Galp signed a non-binding agreement with Moeve’s owners: Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund Mubadala and the US investment firm Carlyle. Two new companies were meant to come out of it. An industrial one would have put Galp’s Sines refinery together with two Moeve refineries in Spain, with Galp holding more than 20%. A retail one would have merged both brands’ forecourts across Portugal and Spain, owned roughly half and half. Oil and gas production was never part of it.

Why it fell apart

The announcement keeps it vague. Galp’s chair, Paula Amorim, says the two sides could not reach the “commercial alignment” needed for a lasting partnership, even though she still thinks the strategic case was a good one.

By Sunday night the Portuguese business press was already reporting the deal in trouble over the terms Moeve’s side wanted. Back in July, Galp’s two co-CEOs had still been pointing to October as the likely month to sign.

What happens now

If you fill up at a Galp station, nothing changes. The company says the collapse does not touch its operations and that it still believes its refining and retail arm can create value on its own, pointing to its energy-transition projects at Sines (one of Europe’s largest green hydrogen electrolysers among them) and an advanced biofuels unit.

The stated priority goes back to upstream: the Namibia discoveries and production in Brazil. Galp also says it remains convinced the sector needs to consolidate, which leaves the door open to other tie-ups. It is the same industry the government decided to charge a temporary levy on 2026 windfall profits, so expect to hear more about it.

By Beatriz Mota

Tugadaily composite · Images: Vitor Oliveira (CC BY-SA 2.0) and Américo Toledano (CC BY-SA 4.0) / Wikimedia Commons

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