Between the project dating from 1965, the two years of construction of 110 hectares of towers and complex superstructures, the commissioning in 1970 and the closure in 1982, only seventeen years will have passed. Or the short history of the Hauconcourt refinery. It all started with a good intention. In the mid-1960s, with an investment of 300 million francs, the French refining company and Esso decided to set up in Lorraine, right between Metz and Thionville. Objective stated: to cope with the foreseeable increase in local energy needs.
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One of the most important customers will obviously be the Lorraine industry. As the techniques evolved, it was estimated that its needs would reach one and a half million tonnes of heavy fuel oil per year. Obviously, a refinery in the heart of the iron and steel basin would lower the cost price of delivery to factories. The refinery, it is also hoped, should have happy consequences for motorists in Lorraine who should pay a cent or two less for their liter of gasoline.
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Creation of activities, diversification, new jobs… In short, all lights are green. The first manufacturing unit delivers its first liters of distilled oil on August 15, 1970. Described as the most modern in France, the site will be inaugurated in June 1971 in the presence of the Minister of Industrial and Scientific Development, François-Xavier Ortoli. In his speech, he predicted: “In 1975, France will consume nearly 140 million tonnes of oil per year and more than 20 million cubic meters of storage will increase the capacity for immediate response to possible transport and supply difficulties …” We know the rest.
April 1982. Sirens symbolically howl to confirm the bad news. Shock in the ranks of employees who have just learned from the press. By the fall, like the Dunkirk and Valenciennes refineries, that of Hauconcourt will cease its activities and the site, which employed some 250 people and employed hundreds of subcontractors, will only be ‘a storage area with hardly more than 20 employees… With the crisis in the steel industry and the energy saving campaigns, in the name of economic realism and against the backdrop of a new oil policy, the fall was inevitable.
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