A LOW-PROFILE engineering group has revived plans for a 10km pipeline to carry hundreds of millions of litres of aviation fuel underground from Dublin Port to Dublin Airport.
Fingleton White & Co, based in Portlaoise, is about to seek planning permission for the project, which would be run by a sister firm, the Independent Pipeline Company.
The project got planning approval in 2001 after appeals to An Bord Pleanala, but was not developed and the planning permit lapsed.
The engineering group will hold public information meetings about the project tomorrow and Tuesday. Mary White, a director of Fingleton White, declined to comment on specific details of the scheme, including the timeframe for development and the cost.
“I’m not going to give any information,” she said. “That’s what the information meetings are for.”
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White said the pipe project was not linked to any particular fuel company. “It will be open commercially. That’s the only way it will work.”
Shell and Topaz have a 50-50 joint venture to sell aviation fuel in Ireland and both companies have large fuel depots at Dublin Port. In its previous planning application, Fingleton White said the airport required more than 300m litres of fuel a year, requiring about 10,000 tanker journeys.
A pipeline, buried at least 1.2 metres underground, would reduce costs and be environmentally friendly, it said. One condition of the last permission was that Fingleton White lodge a cash bond to cover remediation in case of a leak.
The planned route for the pipe was along East Wall Road and the Alfie Byrne Road, through Fairview and Marino and north to the airport through Drumcondra, Santry and the Swords Road. The project needs permission from both Dublin city council and Fingal county council.