Compañía General de Carbones, S.A. (CGC) was founded in 1916 to integrate the different processes in the management and commercialisation of coal such as mining, terrestrial and floating stockyards, briquette production, and supplying steam boats and local industry.

In the early days the Company’s activities were focused on importing coal from the United Kingdom – specifically from the mines in South Wales - via the ports of Swansea, Newport and Cardiff amongst other. The coal was used to supply the steam ships from floating storage facilities in the main Spanish ports.

This activity quickly extended to supplying the local industry and the railways with a combination of imported coal and coal from the Spanish mines.

From the end of the 70s to the mid 80s, CGC supplied considerable volumes of steam coal to the main Spanish power stations.

In the 80s CGC was one of the first companies in Spain to import petroleum coke from the United States and was instrumental in promoting the use of this fuel in Cement Factories and Ceramic and Brick Plants as well as in small industry.