Rhone Gas Pipeline in France Anticipates Full Capacity Restoration This Year

Rhone Gas Pipeline Status and Future Plans

PARIS, Jan 29 (Reuters) - The Rhone gas pipeline that links France's Mediterranean ports with the rest of country, Germany and other neighbours is not expected to return to full capacity until after a review that will take place in March, the French gas lobby FranceGaz said on Thursday.

Impact of the Pipeline Outage

France's importance as a hub for the importing and distribution of natural gas has increased after the Russian invasion of Ukraine caused Europe to buy gas from other partners, including the United States and Qatar.

Operator's Inspection and Restart Plans

The outage of the Rhone pipeline in late September was expected to reduce total gas deliveries by about 43.5 terawatt hours over the winter, when demand is at its peak, equivalent to around 11 days of France's total winter gas consumption.

Concerns About Capacity Restoration

The pipeline is delivering gas below its nominal power as the operator is concerned another problem could occur if it returned to full capacity, President of France Gaz Frederic Martin told journalists.

An inspection is expected after the coldest months, and then the operator will decide if a section or part of the pipeline will need to be replaced. Only then will further rescheduling be decided, he said.

"The operator assembled its teams, secured the area, and restarted the flow, but not at the nominal power, because you don't know if there's another constraint that could recur, so they will need to inspect the entire pipeline," Martin said.

Provided no other issues are discovered during an investigation into the outage, he said the restart should happen around the middle of the year.

(Reporting by Forrest Crellin; editing by Barbara Lewis)