Centrale d’Oxygène Liquide
THE ABANDONED CENTRALE IN FRANCE
‘Centrale d’Oxygène Liquide’ is a liquid oxygen storage that was owned by the ‘Société Metallurgique des Terres Rouges’ or ‘SMTR’. The plant closed down when the local industry collapsed during the 1990s steel crisis.
The oxygen plant was built in 1937 in Audun-le-Tiche, a village in the north of France very close to the Luxembourgh border. It was part of the ‘Atelier Central des Mines de Terres Rouges’.
In that year the SMTR was taken over by the ‘Aciéries Réunies de Burbach-Eich-Dudelange’ or ARBED. This is a major Luxembourg-based steel and iron producing company. The centrale, on the French site of the border was part of the ‘Terres Rouges‘ site in Luxembourg. Since the shutdown of the mines and blast furnaces in 1997, these buildings are also left abandoned. At the present time the vacant factory is used for graffiti art competitions. I took these photos of the ‘Centrale d’Oxygène Liquide’ in 2008.
