CONSTRUCTION work on the Cheshire Stored Oil Recovery Project is due to start this month.

Essar Oil UK is to recover oil from long-term storage in an underground facility to the south east of Plumley, north east of Lach Dennis and west of Peover.

The storage facility consists of 34 salt caverns 200 metres below ground, which have existed since the 1950s and are part of the Government Pipeline and Storage System – a network of pipelines and storage facilities running across the UK.

Once recovered the oil will be transported to Essar’s Stanlow refinery at Ellesmere Port, where it will be assessed, and where possible, processed into standard refinery products.

The recovery of the oil is planned to begin in the autumn, and the recovery phase is expected to last for 12 months.

The route for transporting recovered oil from the storage site to the refinery runs through Lach Dennis and along Penny’s Lane to the A556.

Preparation work at the site will continue until this summer, and the main construction work is due to start on site this month, with the construction material delivery vehicles following the same route as the oil recovery tankers.

The construction work will require two daily deliveries of stone until March, and the trucks delivering the stone will be much smaller than the tankers, half the weight and length.

There will also be intermittent deliveries of concrete during this period, with between two and four concrete trucks visiting the site on any one day.

There will be a one-off delivery of equipment to the site, which will require two low loader vehicles visiting the site.

As these vehicles are much longer than the stone/concrete trucks, preparation work will entail removing a triangular traffic island at the junction of Back Lane and Hulme Lane.

As the removal of the traffic island is also necessary for the recovery phase the island and its components will be put into storage until the end of the recovery phase.

From April to July there will be intermittent deliveries of mechanical equipment, requiring two or three vehicles on any day.