Nearly 6% of service stations in France ran out of gasoline or diesel on Wednesday, according to public data analyzed by AFP, with the oil sector questioning motorists’ concerns that precautionary refueling would increase due to strikes at refineries. . The west is affected more than the national average, with around a quarter of the stations in Sarthe, Indre-et-Loire and Calvados without petrol or diesel.
Fuel is no longer coming out of the French refineries, on strike, but there are 200 tanks in France that continue to supply the stations. “Today, there is a lot of fuel in the national territory” and “the service stations continue to be distributed normally,” Francis Pousse, president of the Mobilians professional union, which represents 5,800 stations of the approximately 10,000 in the country, told AFP. France.
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If one of the 200 tanks is blocked, “we have enough agility to get fuel elsewhere even if it takes longer,” he added, although he said he could not decide for the rest because “everything will depend on whether the strike or not.” continues, whether it intensifies or not”. According to his own figures, the stations with at least one empty tank are “less than 5%” and this stoppage is exclusively due to a “runaway” of motorists who have multiplied precautionary refueling since Friday and “caused an oversell of 10 to 30%.”
“Some stations had anticipated supplying before the crisis, but in some points of sale we had sales increases of 50%, so, inevitably, there is a given moment when there is a pause because we do not put so many trucks. as you want on the way to redeliver the stations, “he explains.
“No special concerns”
These figures are far from the more than 40% of stations without fuel observed as a national average at the height of the strike at the TotalEnergies and Esso-ExxonMobil refineries in October, with even more serious shortages in certain regions. “We have no particular concerns, except for logistical difficulties,” also believes Francis Plan, whose FF3C federation represents a thousand independent broadcasters.
“The sales flow is higher than normal due to concerns,” says Francis Plan. The fever for the pumps was reinforced by the operation of the Leclerc brand that offered fuel at cost price and whose stations were “very crowded during the weekend”, according to him. The lack of fuel in the stations that he represents is very marked in three regions, Île-de-France, Normandy and Pays-de-la-Loire “where 15% of the stations lacked product on Tuesday night”.
Source: BFM TV
