LOIC VENANCE / AFP
A Total Energy employee walks the Donges oil refinery in western France on September 8, 2023. The Donges refinery is the second largest refinery in France.
France – The information first came from a representative of TotalEnergies CGT, before being confirmed by management. The Donges refinery, the second largest in France, was put up “Completely closed for more than a week”. Located near Saint-Nazaire in Loire-Atlantique, the refinery is facing problems. “Corrosion and Leaks”Fabian Prive Saint-Lain, general secretary of the CGT, suggested inside the refinery.
In the process, this Saturday, March 2, the management of the refinery assured that “ Following corrosion on one unit and blockage in the second, refinery teams decided to shut down the installations to carry out necessary repairs. »
“Leaks, Corrosion and Piping to Redo”
According to Fabian Prive Saint-Lain, “ Currently, there are corrosion problems and leaks, obstructions at the oven (…) but 32,000 kilometers of piping to be redone” At this Seveso site at a high threshold. The leaks did not represent a threat to the site’s environment, he assured, adding that the refinery would resume its activities. In a month, at the end of March ».
This Friday, Loire-Atlantique Prefecture published a prefectural decree related to the formal notification of “ Total Energy Rafinage France operates the Donges refinery. Drill is particularly responsible for “ Execution ” Failure to comply with this order will result in “ lawsuit”. Half of the refinery’s installations had already been shut down since mid-December following a second formal notice from Loire-Atlantique prefecture, which told TotalEnergies to “ Respecting the provisions for pipes (…) ».
“All these actions currently represent a cost of around 50 million euros per year”TotalEnergy said on Friday that it has “ Put in place very substantial means to ensure the security (of) the installations” of the site.
Salary delays, low cost operations…
For Fabian Prive Saint-Lain, the shutdown of the refinery “ Low Cost Maintenance and Maintenance Policy ». “Employees are understaffed and work 12, sometimes 16 hours straight (…) which is dangerous”, the union representative lamented. The French giant has not paid salaries to nearly twenty foreign employees, including nine Ukrainians, since December, also condemning CGT in a press release on Friday, which said “ A form of modern slavery ».
The management of the refinery said on Saturday evening that “ With utmost vigilance to ensure that all components of remuneration of contractors working on (its) site are properly paid, particularly when it comes to Tier 2 subcontracting..
According to the TotalEnergies website, the Donges platform, which occupies an area of about 350 hectares and employs 650 employees, is France’s second refinery, after Normandy. It 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) according to the same source.
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