Abelló Linde Centenary Book

THE MARKET IN CATALONIA, THE VALENCIA REGION
AND THE BALEARIC ISLANDS
he company Abelló, Oxígeno-Linde SA was created at a difficult time. It
Tis obvious that the fact of having been the first gave it a privileged
position in the market, but it had to be defended. The demand for
oxygen was rising, but so was the supply. Therefore, a year after the plc was set
up, the minutes of the Board of Directors expressed that it had been a period “of
trial and difficulties due to the competition established between the different
oxygen factories in this region.” 1
In Catalonia the competition came in the shape of the Sociedad de
Carburos Metálicos SA. This company was created in 1897 with Swiss capital and
based in Madrid, but it soon moved to Barcelona. Its first industrial speciality was
the use of its own technology in the electrical furnaces sector, which allowed it to
produce calcium carbide, the basis of acetylene gas. This was the combustible gas
used by blowtorches, along with oxygen, for autogenous welding. Carburos
Metálicos entered the gases, oxygen and dissolved acetylene business with the
installation of a factory in Barcelona (1912) and another in Valencia after the Great
War. It also had an acetylene factory in Bilbao, which it handed over to L’Air
Liquide when this company moved there. Later it added two more oxygen
factories in Madrid and Córdoba.
In 1921 the company Productes i Suministres SA was founded in Barcelona,
whose business was making oxygen. Its special characteristic was that it used the
German patents of Heylandt of Berlin and that its partners were oxygen
consumers. Among them were Andreu Oliva, ex-president of the Unión
Metalúrgica employers’ organization; Miquel Mateu i Pla, of Hijo de Miguel Mateu
SA, and personalities like the economist and politician Miquel Vidal i Guardiola,
and the lawyer and fellow politician Ramon d’Abadal i Vinyals. It was managed by
the engineer and socialist politician Rafael Campalans. The factory was in
Poblenou, at number 53, Carrer Llull.
After the appearance of this company on the market, Isidro Abelló said to
his German partners: “Heylandt of Berlin has set up with the support of some
industrialists from here, consumers of oxygen, in order to create a factory
producing 30 m 3 per hour, which they wish to increase to 90 m 3 per hour. It is the
company Productes i Suministres SA, Companyia Heylandt Espanyola d’Oxígen”.
Isidro Abelló and Carburos Metálicos got in contact with the promoters to point out
“the inopportuneness of their installations, bearing in mind the excessive potential
of our factories and the difficulties with selling oxygen, a result of the industrial
crisis and, especially, of the metallurgical industry. At the end of May they began
selling oxygen at 2.50 pesetas per m 3 , just like us”. 2
1. March 10 1923.
2. Letter from Isidro Abelló to the Germans, July 8 1922.
View from La Sagrera factory
76 The commercial war for the spanish market (1922-1935)