The sealing of the Castor warehouse is entering its final stage.

TarragonaThe work to dismantle the Castor storage facility, located off the coast of Vinaròs, has already passed its first two phases and entered its final stretch this January, according to information obtained by ARA. The work to seal the wells and remove the pipelines began in April 2015 and will be completed during the first half of this year, according to forecasts by Enegás, the company in charge.

The sealing operation began with the removal of the temporary plugs installed in 2016, which, incidentally, had a lifespan of between two and four years. Next, it was necessary to clean the work area before installing the deeper plugs, which form the first barrier of the underwater storage facility to contain the gas. This initial foundation, completed in August, allowed for the removal of some of the pipelines.

Next, a second row of plugs had to be installed to increase the sealing guarantees, and more of the pipes had to be removed. This phase was completed this January, and with it, the wells are considered fully secured. In the third phase, which begins now, a third row of plugs, the closest to the sea surface, will be installed; these will be the last ones.

Sealing oil or gas wells at sea is very common—around 80,000 are done worldwide each year—but the removal of the Castor rig has generated considerable interest due to the political and environmental controversies that have plagued this project from the beginning. The project was spearheaded by ACS, the construction company owned by Florentino Pérez, which held a 66% stake.

The storage facility was sealed by order of the Ministry of Industry in September 2013, after the first gas injections, which lasted only fifteen days, caused seismic activity in the surrounding area. Since then, the pipelines, buried at a depth of 1,920 meters, and the large structure, visible from the coast, remain in the same place.

The project to seal and remove Castor dates back to 2021, and at that time it was anticipated that the entire operation would be completed by December 2022. But if the gas storage facility was a fiasco, the dismantling process, led and paid for by the State, has also failed. The environmental impact authorization did not arrive until March 2023, and it took even longer to obtain ajack-upwhich is the self-elevating platform from which the removal work is carried out.

Finally, on March 30th of last year, the silhouette of a large ship transporting the began to be seen from the coast of Tarragona. jack-up, Specifically, one of the Noble Resolve model, owned by the Noble Corporation. When the self-elevating platform arrived next to the Castor warehouse, it deployed its three legs, each over 100 meters long, to anchor itself to the ground, and work began to seal the 13 existing wells.

Million-dollar invoice

Maintenance work during the first five years cost the State €15 million annually. After five years, the maintenance cost has been €8 million annually. The tasks to seal the wells and remove the pipes have a budget of €76 million; to this expense must be added the final part of the project, which involves the removal of the platform—for which there is still no plan or timeline. Public finances also had to cover the €1.35 billion compensation payment to Florentino Pérez's company for the fiasco of the operation to fulfill a controversial point of the contract, which was signed during the presidency of the socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and subsequently implemented.