A PwC Study Pegs Galp's Innovation District on the Old Matosinhos Refinery at €2 Billion a Year and 100,000 Jobs
A study Galp commissioned from PwC values the Innovation District planned for its shuttered Matosinhos refinery at roughly €2 billion a year over 30 years, with 100,000 jobs — 65,000 in Matosinhos — plus homes for 19,000 residents and campuses for 30,000 students. Demolition ends in December 2026.
The empty ground where Galp's Matosinhos refinery ran for half a century until its closure at the end of 2020 could, on paper, become one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in northern Portugal. A study commissioned by Galp and unveiled this week puts the long-run economic impact of the planned Innovation District at roughly €2 billion a year over three decades — and forecasts 100,000 new jobs once the site reaches maturity.
The numbers come from PwC, working with the CITTA urban-planning research centre, consultancy OPT, the firm ImoEconometrics and economist Ricardo Reis of the London School of Economics. Their headline estimate is a cumulative €65 billion added to national output across 30 years, alongside €9 billion in tax revenue for the state and a further €400 million for local coffers.
A new district, not just a business park
The plan is to turn 255 hectares of former industrial land into a mixed quarter combining housing for about 19,000 residents with university campuses drawing up to 30,000 students, wrapped around research labs and offices aimed at high-value sectors. Of the projected 100,000 jobs, 65,000 would land inside the Concelho de Matosinhos (Municipality of Matosinhos) itself, where the study estimates cumulative gross value added of €43 billion and an annual contribution topping €3 billion once the district is fully built.
For a municipality of roughly 175,000 people, those are transformational figures. The authors also model a 25% rise in local research-and-development spending, growth of more than 50% in high-value industries and a 38% jump in exports attributable to the area.
“The reconversion of this space is a rare opportunity to design a district built around knowledge, innovation and quality of life,” the study argues, framing the refinery site as a chance to reshape the wider Porto metropolitan economy rather than simply redevelop a brownfield.
The catch: it still has to be built
Ambition and permits are not the same thing. Galp signed its founding protocol with local and national authorities in February 2022; demolition began in 2023, the removal of storage tanks finished in 2024, and the tearing-down of the remaining structures is expected to wrap by December 2026. Only after that can the roughly four-year construction phase begin — and the master plan has already met friction, with the Matosinhos council rejecting an earlier version over density and public-space concerns.
- A long horizon: the €2 billion-a-year figure is a projection over 30 years, not a promise for the next budget cycle.
- Industrial pivot for the north: the scheme sits alongside other heavy bets on the Porto area, including Alstom's new Matosinhos train factory.
- Who pays: the study quantifies the upside but leaves open how the multibillion-euro build is financed and how much public money it will draw.
For residents and prospective movers, the Innovation District is worth watching less as a done deal than as a signal of where Greater Porto wants to go: away from oil tanks and toward campuses, labs and apartments. Whether the meter ever reads €2 billion a year will depend on the next decade of cranes, not this week's slideshow.
