Difficulties in refueling with unleaded gasoline or diesel no longer affect only the southeastern departments. According to figures from the Ministry of Energy Transition, on Wednesday night 15% of French stations lacked one or the other of these fuels. But this rate rose to more than 53.4% in Loire-Atlantique at 9 am and more than 40% in various departments of Brittany.
Supply problems for refineries and stations in the West
“When everyone tries to fill their tank to 100%, the system is not capable of responding,” Esso France chief executive Charles Amyot explained Thursday during a press conference presenting financial results. According to him, the problem is mainly logistical, on the supply side of crude oil refineries, some ports are blocked, and on the side of gasoline deliveries to stations.
The Vinci motorway network, for its part, ensures continuity of service in its 181 motorway rest areas at an average rate of 94%, both for unleaded gasoline and diesel. “In order to support drivers and allow them to prepare their daily trips in the best conditions, we have established a dedicated information system, together with its oil partners, to allow users of its network to identify in real time the levels of supply by area. zone”, indicates Vinci Autoroutes.
Of the first effects of the requisitions in the South
The government requisitioned for the first time on Tuesday three employees of the Esso refinery in Fos-sur-Mer, and renewed these requisitions for 48 hours, to relieve stations in the south of the country. The requisition of personnel at the Fos-sur-Mer oil depot produced its first effects since 750 trucks left the depot yesterday, to which 450 more have been added between midnight and 10 am today.
Around 300 more trucks are expected to leave the depot by the end of the day. A truck supplying one to two stations, at least 2,000 gas stations will be resupplied before this afternoon in the South zone. The local situation should therefore continue to improve significantly, while a third of Bouches-du-Rhône service stations were still without at least one fuel on Wednesday evening compared to more than half the same morning. . However, the department’s police headquarters asks motorists who still have gas in their tanks not to rush to the pump to fill up.
For the TotalEnergies site in Gonfreville-L’Orcher (Seine-Maritime), the prefecture did not send police officers to the employees to deliver the requisition letters, but sent a bailiff on Wednesday night, according to Alexis Antonioli, CGT general secretary of the refinery. . On Thursday morning, twenty employees were still meeting with unionists, refusing to enter the refinery.
CGT remains determined to block refineries
“The social movement is based on key sectors that are capable of having a very strong lockdown impact, including the refineries in the first place, so it was very important to come here to support them because it is also based on their shoulders,” he said. said Alma Dufour, an LFI deputy present at the picket. The TotalEnergies refinery in Normandy is on the same pipelines as the CIM (Compagnie industrielle Maritime) in Le Havre and the neighboring Esso-ExxonMobil refinery in Port-Jérôme-Gravenchon, which supply the Paris airports. Fuel shipments from the Esso refinery are also blocked, according to the CGT.
“The management is limited to making the same proposals that they made to us during the night, telling us that eventually they agree to negotiate with the prefect the suspension of requisitions, but the counterpart is to make shipments of kerosene, which is totally absurd, because it is equivalent to making us embark for what they are requisitioning from us”, said Alexis Antonioli.
For the trade unionist, beyond the relatively modest amounts of kerosene, the State wants to attack a “symbol”, that of the first refinery that ceased production, and thus “break the strike movement.”
TotalEnergies only has one refinery in four running, in Feyzin, near Lyon, from where strikers continue to block shipments. Two others (Donges, in Loire-Atlantique, and La Mède, in Bouches-du-Rhône) were arrested for reasons unrelated to the strike. The only French refinery of the Petroineos company in Lavéra (Bouches-du-Rhône) also stopped due to the strike. The two Esso-ExxonMobil refineries, in Port-Jérôme-Gravenchon and Fos-sur-Mer continue to operate, but fuel shipments remain blocked, according to the CGT.
Source: BFM TV
