The day is not over, a row of tankers hums and spreads in front of a fuel depot at the port of Gennevilliers (Hauts-de-Seine): here the distribution to service stations resumed on Monday after the lifting of the strike on Friday at Esso-ExxonMobil in Port-Jérôme (Seine-Maritime).
Quentin Freltas, a delivery man, arrived at 4:15 am Two hours later, he still hadn’t been able to fill his truck, which was waiting his turn in line.
A few kilometers from Paris, in the meanders of the Seine, the depot managed by the Sogepp company is one of the ten fuel depots that supply service stations in Ile-de-France.
It is supplied by a pipeline connected to the Esso-ExxonMobil refinery at Port-Jérôme in Normandy, where the employee strike was lifted on Friday, allowing deliveries to resume.
Almost all of the cargo spaces are occupied by a truck that fills up with gasoline or diesel. Each will then go to deliver a customer service station, before recharging again.
“It’s pretty tense”
Fuel consumption in France “is higher than normal consumption” at the moment, he stresses, “because the French are worried and have gone to refuel as a precaution.”
This increases tensions at service stations, which delivery men have witnessed daily since the beginning of the wage conflict that continues to paralyze TotalEnergies refineries.
“Our issue is a logistics issue,” adds the minister, present during the exchange: “find carriers, drivers, to transport fuel.”
Five liters as a precaution
In the process, it announces the requisition of essential employees at two striking oil sites, at Mardyck in the north near Dunkirk, and at Feyzin in the Rhône, to refuel stations in Hauts-de France, Auvergne-Rhône Alpes and Bourgogne-Franche. -Comté, which have rupture rates of more than 30%.
Decisions that give “13-14 hour days” right now for drivers like Quentin Freltas.
Source: BFM TV
