The profits of the number one oil company in the United States, ExxonMobil, are dizzying. To take only the most recent two years, the American group amassed nearly $92 billion (more than 85 billion euros) in net profit, between the start of 2022 and the end of 2023.
The morning of Thursday April 11 nevertheless caused dismay the approximately 2,400 employees of its French entities. First, the main shock: invoking “more than 500 million euros in losses since 2018”, the ExxonMobil Chemical France subsidiary has announced the closure of a large part of its petrochemical activities by the end of the year. In perspective, “the elimination of 677 positions” in 2025: i.e. 647 positions on the Normandy site of Gravenchon, in the town of Port-Jérôme-sur-Seine (Seine-Maritime), and 30 at the company’s headquarters, in the Paris region.
Another subsidiary, another announcement: as much as Esso (677 million euros of net profit in 2023) intends to keep its refinery on the same Gravenchon site (which it has operated since 1933), it is preparing to resell that of Fos- sur-Mer (Bouches-du-Rhône), as well as the Toulouse and Villette-de-Vienne (Isère) depots. As the approximately 310 employees affected have learned, a consortium is preparing to take control by the end of the year. The duo brings together a Swiss raw materials trading giant, Trafigura – also found guilty by American justice in March, in a corruption case in Brazil – and an American refinery operator, Entara. He promises to “maintain current workforce”.
From Normandy to Provence, the concomitance of the two announcements would be pure ” chance “, according to an ExxonMobil spokesperson. The group, however, brought together all the staff representatives to inform them of this, Thursday April 11 in the morning, in a hotel in the La Défense district (Hauts-de-Seine), specially convening a central social and economic committee. At the end of the day, the price of Esso on the stock market rose by 7.8%.
Not competitive enough
On the ground, concern has especially spread to the Gravenchon platform and its almost 2,000 employees. “We don’t yet know how we will react”explained Pierre-Antoine Auger, elected Force Ouvrière (majority union on site), cited by Agence France-Presse, oscillating between “sadness” And “annoyance”. “A sledgehammer” for everyone, summarizes Germinal Lancelin, head of the CGT on the site. The National Federation of Chemical Industries (CGT) denounces “a breakage only justified by a profit rate deemed too low”. She calls for a strike against this “massive destruction of industrial jobs by a billion-dollar oil sector company”. The message is also aimed at subcontractors, knowing that the petrochemical activity also provides indirect jobs.
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