According to Seopan, the Spanish association of construction and infrastructure concession companies, the government must adopt urgent measures to offset the inflationary impact of the war in Iran on the price of public works. The association has submitted a formal proposal to the executive requesting exceptional intervention after the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz drove increases of up to 42% in bituminous materials and energy, a shock it says is severely affecting civil works execution.
Seopan calculates that the 6.425 works tendered in Spain between December 2025 and February 2026, worth a combined 6.898 million euros, already face an unrecoverable cost overrun of 327 million euros before construction even begins. That figure equals 4,7% of the base tender budget. Price indices tracked by the association show rises of 42% and 41% in bituminous materials, with port, road, rail and hydraulic works among the categories most exposed.
Seopan is asking for exceptional measures similar to those applied during the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, including a revision of the price indices for energy and labour. Specifically, it wants the government to reactivate the mechanisms authorised in 2022 under Royal Decree 3/2022 and subsequent regulations, which were approved to mitigate the inflationary effects of Covid-19 and the Ukraine war, this time extending the exceptional revision to energy and labour cost indices among other changes.
"This situation gravely compromises public works activity", Seopan warned, explaining that contracts tendered and executed by Spain's regional and local administrations lack any price-revision mechanism at all, while state contracts that do include such clauses are subject to a waiting period that prevents them from being applied in time.