Valais Refinery Chimneys Demolished As Site Eyes Tech Future

The chimneys, about 100 metres high and with a total weight of 4,000 tonnes, collapsed one after the other, like a house of cards, within seconds.

The demolition, which took about three months to prepare, required 50 kilos of explosives. Nearby streets were closed for one hour for safety reasons.

“Extensive environmental, technical and risk analysis studies have been conducted since 2024 and field tests were carried out in 2025 to assess ground vibrations,” Tamoil Switzerland Director Stéphane Trachsler told reporters. The rubble will be reused in construction projects in the region.

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“It's a symbolic day,” said Olivier Turin, mayor of Collombey-Muraz.“It closes an industrial chapter, but allows for a new beginning that will transform our local landscape and that of the Chablais region.”

“One cannot witness the disappearance of a site that has been an energy provider for our country and has provided a living for so many families for decades without feeling a certain nostalgia, especially among the people who worked there,” Trachsler said.

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“This dismantling is both an end and a beginning but which will not be that of heavy industry, but rather oriented towards new technologies.”

The refinery was closed in 2015 and over 230 people lost their jobs. At the time, canton Valais gave Tamoil a five-year deadline to decide on possible re-use of the site, but the company decided in 2019 that it no longer wanted to re-open and announced that it would be decommissioned.

Translated from Italian by AI/sb