The La Mède refinery is a biorefinery that previously operated as a traditional fossil fuel refinery owned by
TotalEnergies
TotalEnergies SE is a French multinational integrated energy and petroleum company founded in 1924 and is one of the seven supermajor oil companies. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas explorati ...
in
Châteauneuf-les Martigues near
Marseille
Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...
, France, and on the
Etang de Berre.
The plant includes about 250 hectares.
The biorefinery has a capacity of 500,000 tones of biofuels (
hydrotreated vegetable oil) a year.
The plant conversion, started in 2015, finished in 2019 with EUR 275 million of capital expenditure.
In 2021, the plant announced production of
aviation biofuel
An aviation biofuel (also known as bio-jet fuel, Note: About">Investable Universe>About' sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), or bio-aviation fuel (BAF)) is a biofuel used to power aircraft. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) conside ...
made from cooking oil.
A 2018 agreement with the French government capped the amount of
palm oil production
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 36% of global oils produced from oi ...
at the facility at 300 000 tonnes, while requiring at least 50 000 tonnes of French-grown rapeseed oil.
Environmental activists have criticized the plant for its reliance on
palm oil
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 36% of global oils produced from o ...
, which has a
track record of global environmental destruction and human rights violations.
Local farmers represented by
Fédération nationale des syndicats d'exploitants agricoles also expressed concerns about palm oil competing with local oil production.
History
The refinery was built in the early 1930s as one of two refineries (the other in
Gonfreville) whose purpose was to refine a new source of Middle Eastern crude oil. The
Compagnie Francaise des Petroles held a 23.75% share in the
Iraq Petroleum Company
The Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), formerly known as the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), is an oil company that had a virtual monopoly on all oil exploration and production in Iraq between 1925 and 1961. It was jointly owned by some of the world ...
, which had struck oil in Kirkuk in 1927 and in 1934 had completed
a pipeline to the Mediterranean Sea.
With the
Fall of France
The Battle of France (; 10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign (), the French Campaign (, ) and the Fall of France, during the Second World War was the German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Net ...
, Syria and the pipeline terminal at
Tripoli
Tripoli or Tripolis (from , meaning "three cities") may refer to:
Places Greece
*Tripolis (region of Arcadia), a district in ancient Arcadia, Greece
* Tripolis (Larisaia), an ancient Greek city in the Pelasgiotis district, Thessaly, near Larissa ...
were under the control of the Vichy Government, but with Iraq on the side of the Allies, oil deliveries came to a halt. With the
Syria–Lebanon campaign
The Syria–Lebanon campaign, also known as Operation Exporter, was the invasion of Syria and Lebanon (then controlled by Vichy France, a vassal state of Nazi Germany) in June and July 1941 by British Empire forces, during the Second World War.
...
in the summer of 1941 the Allies regained control of the entire pipeline system and with the
Battle of Marseille
The Battle of Marseille was an urban battle of World War II that took place August 21–28, 1944, and led to the liberation of Marseille by Free French forces under the command of General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. The groundwork was laid ...
at the end of August 1944 gained control of the refinery.
While the refineries on the Atlantic coast were destroyed or severely damaged, the three refineries near Marseille remained intact: La Mede, Etang de Berre and Lavera. The prewar capacity of 900,000 tons per year (18,750bpd) at La Mede was still available in 1945 and had risen to 1,200,000 (25,000bpd) in 1947. France as a whole had a prewar refining capacity of 8,100,000 tons per year (168,750bpd), which fell to 1,800,000tpa (37,500bpd) in 1945 and recovered by 1947 to 6,680,000tpa (140,000bpd).
In 1961 the two plants at Gonfreville (150,000bpd) and Martigues (136,000bpd) were the two largest in France (total 914,715bpd crude oil capacity).
The plant entered operation in 1935 as a crude oil and petrochemical plant.
The plant stopped production of petroleum in 2016.
In 1992 the plant had a
gas explosion
A gas explosion is the Combustion, ignition of a mixture of air and flammable gas, typically from a gas leak. In household accidents, the principal explosive gases are those used for heating or cooking purposes such as natural gas, methane, propan ...
.
References
Oil refineries in France
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