Update – September 18, 2023: Arrival of the Cape Ann in the port of Le Havre at 11:30 a.m. Exit from François 1er lock at 1:45 p.m. End of docking at Darse de l’Océan at 3 p.m. Three and a half hours – that’s how long it will take to go the other way in the event of a gas leak or fire. You can only see this in Le Havre.
Update – September 15, 2023: The Cape Ann has slowed down. Her arrival off Le Havre is now scheduled for late afternoon on Sunday September 17.
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September 13, 2023 – 5:30 p.m.
The arrival of the Cape Ann is imminent. She is currently off Porto. She is due to arrive in Le Havre on Friday. This 283 m long Floating Storage and Regasification Unit will be moored on the Quai de Bougainville and fuelled by LNG carriers transporting gas from the United States, Qatar, Africa and Russia in liquefied form at a temperature of minus 160°. In Tianjin, China, the Cape Ann was moored at the end of a 15 km artificial peninsula, far from the commercial port and the city, ready to eject or be ejected into the open sea. The floating gas terminal in Le Havre is quite the opposite. It requires LNG tankers to enter or leave the port on an 8 km route through basins alongside a 4-million m3 storage facility for oil and refined products, the cruise terminal, residential areas and to cross the François 1er lock. The government claims that, in the event of a major alert, the FSRU vessel will be able to “quickly set sail”. In fact, the Cape Ann and the LNG tankers that will supply her with liquefied natural gas will be in a cul-de-sac with no escape route.
Le Havre, France. Robin des Bois map.
Tianjin, China. Robin des Bois map.
It was in defiance of all the basic rules of maritime safety and the public interest that this site was chosen and exempted from a public enquiry and a Technological Risk Prevention Plan, thanks to the Law on emergency measures to protect purchasing power of August 16, 2022. The four onshore LNG terminals in France (Loon-Plage, Montoir-de-Bretagne and 2 at Fos-sur-Mer) are subject to the Seveso high threshold directive. Their Technological Risk Prevention Plans provide for damage in the event of a major accident within a radius of several kilometres. Because the Le Havre gas terminal operated by TotalEnergies is a floating facility, it is not subject to the Seveso directive, even though it is at the heart of an area containing 21 Seveso plants.
You can only see this in Le Havre. All the floating gas terminals in the world, in China, Croatia, Türkiye, Israel, Brazil, Jordan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Germany and Malaysia, are installed on peninsulas, at the end of several kilometres of dykes or in rivers that are immediately open to the open sea, so that in the event of a gas leak and the risk of an explosion, emergency equipment can be put in place to minimise damage to social and economic activities.
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September 18, 2023
Cape Ann arrives in the port of Le Havre at 11:30 a.m. © Robin des Bois
Leaving the François 1er lock at 1:45 p.m © Robin des Bois
End of docking at Darse de l’Océan at 3 p.m. © Robin des Bois
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