A “crude oil leak” at the TotalEnergies refinery in Donges pollutes “an area of 500 square meters” of the Loire, announced the prefecture of Loire-Atlantique, Sunday November 24 in the morning, by press release. It claims to contain “in part” pollution par “a double containment system via floating booms, despite climatic conditions which make it difficult to encircle this iridescent zone”.
It was Saturday evening that “the TotalEnergies refinery in Donges detected a crude oil leak at an elbow on a line 30 centimeters in diameter”informs the prefecture. “The leak materialized as a 2-centimeter breach on a weld bead”which created “a trickle of flow having led to an iridescence of an area of approximately 500 square meters in the Loire”.
The incident was detected at 10:50 p.m. on Saturday, TotalEnergies said in a press release on Sunday. “The flow of crude oil in the Loire” was stopped in the night, “from 1:40 a.m.”et “the device was completed this [dimanche] morning at 8:50 a.m.added the company. According to the prefecture, it is “since 3:45 a.m.” Sunday that “no more flow of crude oil flows into the Loire”. She adds that “interventions” were launched “to permanently seal the leak” and said he mobilized “all state services (…) immediately “.
Total shutdown in February following corrosion
“The quantity of product escaped [dans la] Loire is less than 15 cubic meters »according to TotalEnergies. Analyzes carried out on the banks of the Loire “revealed no trace of hydrocarbon” et “no anomaly in the air either” was not recorded, the company claimed. “The iridescent waters should partly disperse naturally and be transferred, by the action of the wind, to the banks”had previously communicated the prefecture, ensuring that it was continuing to assess the environmental impact of this leak.
In December 2022, a leak from this refinery, classified Seveso high threshold, caused the flow of 700,000 liters of gasoline. At the end of February 2024, the refinery had been completely shut down “ in order to carry out necessary repairs following corrosion on one unit and blockage on a second”argued the management of the refinery.
The Donges platform, which occupies an area of nearly 350 hectares and where 650 employees work, is the group’s second refinery in France, after that of Normandy, in Gonfreville-l’Orcher (Seine-Maritime), according to the website of TotalEnergies. The Donges site has a processing capacity of 11 million tonnes of crude oil per year, for a storage capacity of 2.2 million cubic meters (crude oil and finished products), according to the same source.
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