Most French refineries remain blocked, Tuesday, March 14, on the eve of the eighth day of national mobilization against the pension reform, the strikers being however reluctant to put the sites completely at a standstill while the stocks are almost full.
“In TotalEnergies refineries, for the moment it has not changed, shipments are still blocked everywhere”even if production continues, explained to Agence France-Presse (AFP) Eric Sellini, CGT coordinator for the group.
In the refineries of Feyzin (Rhône) and Normandy, the largest in France, the blocking of fuel shipments for almost a week led to a saturation of the product tanks, risking requiring a stoppage of production.
In these two TotalEnergies refineries, however, employees continue to operate with “products that are not immediately marketable” because they “do not want to shut down the refinery for the time being”detailed Mr. Sellini.
Saturation Storage Bins
Already this weekend, the strikers had agreed “with management” to let out products to be able to continue the strike “without stopping the installations”had confirmed to AFP two union sources.
Among the other oil groups, the strike also continues. If the Esso-ExxonMobil refinery in Port-Jérôme-Gravenchon (Seine-Maritime) resumed shipments on Thursday, that of Fos-sur-Mer (Bouches-du-Rhône) “is still on strike”, Eric Sellini told AFP. Ditto at the Petroineos refinery in Lavera, where workers “are still on strike”added the union representative, even if the storage bins there are also reaching saturation point.
A refinery shutdown can be triggered in two ways: a blocking of shipments which, once the stocks are full, raises the question of the shutdown anyway for safety reasons or a request addressed to the site managers by the strikers.
For several days, the oil unions have been proposing to the refinery strikers to harden the movement against the pension reform by stopping production, but the latter are reluctant to begin these technically delicate and long operations. Shutting down an installation can take three to four days and restarting one or even two weeks.