France, gas stations almost dry after 4 days of strike by the refineries
According to an industry union, diesel and petrol stations in France are running out of fuel due to the strike in the oil refining sector.
According to the GCT union, stations in the Le Havre and Lyon areas were hit.
France was already struggling with a shortage of refined products, due to the decline in Russian exports to Europe in recent months, but strikes by French refineries initially knocked out half of the country's refining capacity in hopes of solving a wage dispute.
The strike, which among other things knocked out the 240,000 bpd Total Gonfreville refinery and a couple of Exxon refineries, was supposed to end on Thursday, but news came on Friday that strikes halted refining for a fourth day. and the delivery of Total's petroleum products. According to Reuters calculations, total outages in the refining sector in France now account for 60% of the country's total refining capacity.
Earlier in the week, Total said it was preparing to serve all of its stations during the strike, while Exxon limited the amount of refined raw products it was shipping to its customers in France. On that occasion, Exxon also stated that it had set up a supply response team to be able to continue sourcing products from “unaffected sources”.
The total refining capacity of France is around 1.4 million bpd, the fourth highest in Europe.
TotalEnergies said on Friday that there is no imminent fuel shortage due to the strikes, as the company has stockpiled and is importing.
“There's no need to rush to the gas station (for gas),” TotalEnergies said Friday. Despite these claims, Reuters reported Friday that France's largest sugar producer, Tereos, said it had to cut production at some of its factories after Total told it it would not be able to supply it with more diesel. until the end of the week.
The CGT union said the strikes could potentially last beyond Friday, without a specific end date.
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The article France, service stations almost dry after 4 days of strike by the refineries comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/francia-stazioni-di-servizio-quasi-a-secco-dopo-4-giorni-di-sciopero-delle-raffinerie/ on Sat, 01 Oct 2022 17:16:01 +0000.