Totalenergies must urgently dismantle the floating LNG terminal installed in Le Havre in 2023. It is a decision of the administrative court of Rouen that coincides with the environmental association “Ecologie pour le Havre”. For the judge, maintaining this urgently authorized infrastructure in 2023 no longer has a reason to exist when Totalenergies wanted to maintain it. “We asked for the terminal to be dismantled because it had been authorized by the urgency of the war between Russia and Ukraine,” recalls Pierre Dieulefait, president of the “Ecologie pour Le Havre” association.
The LNG terminal is actually a ship called Cape Ann, with a capacity of 145,000m3, it is equipped with a regasification system. It was installed as an emergency in 2023 to end our dependence on Russian gas following the attack on Ukraine and was to provide 10% of our gas supply. Europe was 40% dependent on Russian gas before the outbreak of the conflict.
“A tailored legal regime for Totalenergies”
This floating terminal can accommodate shale gas from Norway, Algeria, Qatar, the United States, Nigeria, Angola and even Egypt. In fact, two years after its commissioning, the terminal is closed due to lack of gas deliveries. “A tailor-made legal regime has been created for Totalenergies, which wanted to preserve this gateway to shale gas,” says Julien Bayou, lawyer for the association and former EELV deputy. The legal challenge was to enforce a Constitutional Council decision from August 2022 that recognized environmental protection as “one of the country’s fundamental interests” and that authorized the terminal “with the condition of a serious threat to gas supplies.”
The gas, transported in liquid form by ship and regasified before being injected into the onshore network, had become a crucial energy source for Europe, which was 40% dependent on Russian gas before the Ukraine conflict. The Cape Ann, a ship launched in 2010, is equipped with regasification equipment with a maximum capacity of five billion cubic meters per year, or 10% of French demand. LNG tankers will arrive to supply gas, possibly from the countries mentioned above.
At the request of BFMTV, Totalenergies has not yet commented.
Source: BFM TV
