An inspection visit to the TotalEnergies Donges Refinery was carried out on Monday November 25 after the crude oil leak during the night from Saturday to Sunday. According to DREAL “the maximum quantity of crude oil spilled during the accident is estimated at less than 15 m3”. TotalEnergies is asked to “maintain” visual checks and samples.
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The Regional Directorate for the Environment, Planning and Housing (DREAL), which coordinates the management of all risks, particularly environmental risks, explains that during the inspection, “no presence of crude oil was noted on the banks and on the Loire apart from the floating dams set up by TotalEnergies which made it possible to contain part of the pollution“.
This crude oil pollution is assessed by state services at “less than 15m3“.
In its press release, the Loire-Atlantique Prefecture indicates that the piping of wharf number 6 was the cause of the incident.is recent piping replaced in 2021“and that she”was subjected to a leak test before being put into service.
The next regulatory inspection of this piping is planned for 2026, state services specify.
No report of traces of pollution has been reported to the prefectural authorities or to TotalEnergies at this stage.
Prefecture of Loire-Atlantiquepress release of November 25, 2024
“The operator was asked to maintain visual surveillance and samples in the Loire” also specifies the Prefecture of Loire-Atlantique.
A crude oil leak was detected at the TotalEnergies refinery in Donges on Saturday November 23, 2024
15 m³ of crude oil spilled into the Loire, iridescent 500 m² of water.
“The leak materialized as a 2 cm breach on a weld bead creating a net flow” in the Loire, announced Saturday November 23 the prefecture, adding that “dupon the occurrence of the event, the section of the line concerned was isolated“.
The report by Sophie Wahl, Christophe François, Christophe Person
duration of video: 00h02mn00s
A crude oil leak was detected at the TotalEnergies refinery in Donges on Saturday November 23, iridescent 500 square meters of water into the Loire.
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©France Télévisions
On January 2, 2021, Totalenergies announced “some iridescence” in Loire at wharf 6 announced following a leak.
For its part, the prefecture indicated “the release of a few liters of oil in the Loire”.
READ ALSO.Donges: crude oil leak at the refinery, no environmental impact but Total will have to be held accountable
“In reality this leak resulted in the flow into the ground of 300,000 liters of product responsible for pollution over an area of approximately 10,000 m² and groundwater,” denounces the Donge Environmental Association of Risk Zones and the PPRT.
On December 21, 2022, a gasoline leak occurred in one of the refinery's tanks. 800,000 liters contained “in a retention tank without a sealing system” had exposed the population to “concentration rate of benzene exceeding for several days the toxicological reference value for this exposure”.
Results known by TotalEnergies from January 2023, but which the industrialist hid for more than 20 months.
READ ALSO. Hydrocarbon leak at the Donges refinery in December 2022. TotalEnergies hid the results of a study on air pollution
“Today, this new leak does not escape the immediate comments usually
reassuring from the operator and the Prefecture, often denied in the following days”, denounces the residents' association after last Saturday's leak.
“To assert that the measurements carried out did not detect the presence of volatile organic compounds is risky if we do not specify where the measurements were carried out and whether or not the sensors were upwind” adds the AEDZRP.
Simply stating “that the iridescent waters should disperse naturally and be carried back, by the action of the wind, onto the banks”, ignores respect for the environment.
AEDZRPPress release
The AEDZRP believes that “the State must put an end to its complacency towards unscrupulous industrialists who constantly claim transparency that they do not have and demand that installations be brought up to standard in accordance with existing environmental rules.”
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 m3 (crude oil and finished products).
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