The old sea-line is living its last hours between Sète and Frontignan

Jusqu’à la fin novembre, la barge de chantier évoluera dans cette zone. – DR

La dernière partie de l’ancien pipeline qui faisait passer le pétrole entre le large de Sète et le dépôt de Frontignan sera démantelée d’ici fin novembre.

It's the swan song for the sea-line. Unused since 2020 and the creation of a new pipeline transporting some 2,000 m3 per hour, at full load, of hydrocarbons between the new station in the port of Sète and the tanks of the Frontignan depot, the old pipe, stretching between the offshore station and GDH, is currently being dismantled.

Horizon, end of November

The work, which began at the end of 2022, is in its final phase. “There, we are removing the part that follows the Frontignan dike up to the beach, explains Thomas Chambat, the director of GDH Frontignan.We started at the beginning of October, because we did not have the authorization to intervene before, and if the weather conditions (the weather on Monday October 4, for example, did not allow any operation: Editor's note) are good, we should have finished by the end of November.” It is, in fact, BP, owner of the Frontignan storage site, who is responsible for this work. A no-navigation zone has also been enacted to allow these operations.

400m of tubes to be removed

This last sequence involves removing 400m of tubes, already cleaned. Thomas Chambat explains the process: “The barge is positioned above and, after a diver has checked it, shears off a section. The collected tube is then brought back up onto the platform and will be “directed to a recycling company”. If Neptune doesn't take itself too seriously in the sector, the matter will be settled in a month and a half. And this will be the end of three types of actions on the old sea-line.

Three types of operations

Indeed, with the agreement of the State services, the remains of the old pipeline have had three different fates. Some parts, very accessible like along the D612, have simply been removed. Others – like the pipe located under the beach of the Entrance or between the Frontignan dike and the unloading station where the oil tankers docked offshore – were either filled with water or concrete. The current underwater operation is of the third type. And given the conditions not the easiest.

I subscribe to read the rest