The announcement took the entire industrial-port area of Fos-sur-Mer (Bouches-du-Rhône) by surprise. By revealing, on April 11, that it was entering into exclusive negotiations to sell its Esso refinery, based in the Provencal commune, to the international consortium Rhône Energies, the hydrocarbon giant ExxonMobil surprised employees, local economic and political players.
“Four months earlier, I received the site managers in my office to ask them how they planned to be part of the dynamic of decarbonization and reduction in oil consumption which is affecting our territory. They told me that they had no concerns about the sustainability of the plant, that it had good profitability and that the oil was still expected to last for many years… In fact, they were in the process of selling »says, a bit annoyed, René Raimondi, the mayor (without label) of Fos.
Located as close as possible to this town of 17,000 inhabitants, its storage tanks overlooking Cavaou beach, the Esso refinery is one of the oldest sites of the petrochemical and industrial complex born in the 1960s between the Etang de Berre and the sea. Mediterranean. Capable of processing 140,000 barrels of crude oil per day, it represents nearly 10% of refining capacity in France. With its 310 employees, it is not as large an employer as ArcelorMittal, its neighbor and steel giant, which employs more than three thousand people. But its destiny remains closely linked to that of the inhabitants of the Fos-sur-Mer area. “One job at the refinery means five indirect jobs”recalls Lionel Arbiol, CGT representative on the social and economic committee (CSE) of ExxonMobil France.
Like Mr. Raimondi, who says “monitor the situation carefully”the union official did not see the change of ownership coming. “Nothing had leaked”, he admits. On April 11, he discovered that, despite its 92 billion dollars (more than 85 billion euros) in net profit between the start of 2022 and the end of 2023 globally, his group was going to restructure its French branches. Closure of petrochemical activities in Gravenchon, in the town of Port-Jérôme-sur-Seine (Seine-Maritime), with the elimination of 647 positions. And sale of the Fos refinery and the Toulouse and Villette-de-Vienne (Isère) depots to Rhône Energies, a new entity formed by two oil sector specialists: the Swiss trader Trafigura and the American refinery operator Entara.
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