At the edge of a forest, lost in the middle of thirsty fields, a few wellheads emerge from the ground. Discreet, these gooseneck-shaped pipes barely hint at the size of the “bubble”, the gas reservoir, which extends under our feet. “Here, the gas is stored in porous rock, several hundred meters underground. Less reactive than salt cavities, another technology, this type of storage has the advantage of being able to store and deliver large amounts of energy during winter, when we consume five times more gas than in summer. »explains Pierre Chambon, Managing Director of Storengy France, a subsidiary of the Engie group, the leading gas storage operator in France.
Located in Saint-Illiers-la-Ville, near Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines), this strategic site, like the fifteen others in France, began, as every year, before the cold season, its filling – from April to November – of gas in the basement. With, this time, a notable difference: to do it as quickly as possible.
“A priori, we started well”insists Mr. Chambon, who monitors these “injections” like milk on fire. “Overall, our customers, shippers and energy suppliers, who reserve these capacities as warehouses, have played the game. As of July 26, more than 77% of them were already filled”he explains, specifying that the government’s minimum objective (85% on 1er November) is at hand.
Moreover, in the event of difficulty, as provided for in Article 10 of the purchasing power billit would go to Storengy and Teréga, the second operator that manages
two sites out of sixteen, in the south-west of France, “playing the armed wing of the state” and replenish inventory if needed. “These are particularly strategic in the heart of winter. Some days, during peaks, they can represent up to 60% of consumption,” underlines Gilles Doyhamboure, Director of Commerce and Regulation at Teréga. These reservoirs “complement the gas that arrives by pipeline or that which comes by ship in the form of liquefied natural gas [GNL] », he adds. Fossil gases that mix in the basements, before they adapt one day to receive biomethane, syngas or hydrogen.
“The competition is likely to become tighter”
To succeed in replacing Russian gas, which, in 2021, represented 17% of the national supply, France is asking more of its other partners – Norway in the lead, but also Algeria, the Netherlands, Nigeria and the Qatar. Significantly, it is the European country to have increased its LNG imports the most in the first half. Even more than Spain and the United Kingdom. Often derived from shale gas, this gas is liquefied, and therefore less voluminous, then transported on LNG carriers before being returned to the gaseous state once it has arrived at its destination.
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