Metrostav DIZ Completes Building Shell for Fuel Tanks in Hněvice, Litoměřice District

The Druzhba pipeline has been at a standstill since the beginning of March and the first increased oil delivery arrived in the Czech Republic via the western route last week. We could hardly have a better time to highlight the importance of strategic inventories. In the next few weeks, the construction contractor Metrostav DIZ will finish the building shell for six giant fuel storage tanks at the ČEPRO site in Hněvice, Litoměřice District. While the last two tanks are still undergoing roof installation, the first one is already getting its final coat of paint.

The operator will be able to store up to ten million litres of petrol or diesel in each tank. The total of sixty million litres will increase the capacity of the strategic inventories at the Hněvice terminal by about twenty percent. To give you an idea: This amount corresponds to roughly two days’ consumption by the entire Czech Republic.

Two of the six tanks have already passed their hydrostatic test. In this process, the builders fill a tank with water and observe the effect of the load on the foundation structure. In order for them to evaluate a test as successful, the foundations must not move for 72 hours. The original schedule called for completion in early 2027, but actual progress indicates an earlier date due to an operational change to the foundations prior to construction.

“We have a lot of experience with the construction of these tanks. If we had opted for foundations on gravel piles, as required by the design, we would have waited several months for the subgrade to be consolidated. Therefore, in agreement with the investor, we opted for reinforced concrete piles, which enabled rapid construction of the foundations. It should be remembered that a foundation slab has to support over ten thousand tonnes, which is equivalent to the weight of more than 260 fully loaded lorries. Therefore, each of them is supported by ninety piles with a length of 12 metres and a thickness of 60 centimetres,” said Jan Sochor, construction manager at Metrostav DIZ.

Each of the six double-walled tanks being being built consists of the tank itself and an external containment sump to prevent fuel leakage in the event of a hypothetical rupture of the tank wall. For the same reasons, the bottom of a tank is designed as a double bottom. There is a space of about a millimetre between the two bottoms with underpresssure and sensors that would indicate any leak problems to the control room. Although the tanks are made up of seemingly robust sheet metal, they are also affected by the pressure of the stored liquid and the ambient temperature. So normally a tank gets a little bigger during the day and smaller at night.

The six new storage tanks will increase the Czech Republic’s strategic fuel inventories by 60 million litres. They will also increase the input capacity to the ČEPRO system. Hněvice is directly connected to both Czech refineries in Kralupy nad Vltavou and Litvínov and has a three-kilometre long railway spur track. It is a key node in the fuel infrastructure in terms of the country’s energy security. This investment is currently one of the most significant for ČEPRO.

Metrostav Group companies have more than 25 years of systemic construction of large-capacity tanks and can therefore rely on a wealth of experience and know-how. Between 2000 and 2019, it built a total of seven oil storage tanks for MERO ČR, each with a capacity of 125,000 cubic metres, on the premises of the Central Oil Tank Farm in Nelahozeves. In 2011, it completed the construction of four reinforced concrete underground diesel storage tanks with a total storage capacity of 140,000 cubic meters for ČEPRO.

Contact details

Radim Mana
Metrostav Group Spokesman
Metrostav a.s. Koželužská 2450/4 180 00 Prague 8
T 266 019 715, M 601 110 376
radim.mana@metrostav.cz, www.metrostav.cz