Are Paris airports in danger of running out of kerosene? Supplying Ile-de-France and its airports via Normandy “becomes critical”, due to strikes in refineries, according to the Ministry of Energy Transition. The government has thus “issued a requisition order” with regard to the strikers, which was not notified ” at this stage “ to employees of the refinery, which was shut down last weekend.
“The government is monitoring the situation hour by hour and department by department with professionals and prefects. We intervene in a targeted manner to unblock deposits that are obstructed by demonstrators. As soon as requisitions cannot be avoided, we will take our responsibilities”said the Minister of Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
For its part, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) has been warning airlines for several days that the reserves of kerosene in the airports of Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle and Paris-Orly are ” under pressure “, prompting them to take precautions. ” To avoid any operational problem, all flights to Paris-CDG are called upon to take as much fuel as possible from their airport of origin, within the limits of operational capacities. of the device, announced the DGAC in a message sent on March 17.
15% of service stations affected in the country
These tensions are added to the growing shortage of petrol and diesel in the country’s service stations: according to Agence France-Presse (AFP), 15% of French stations lacked one or other of these fuels on Thursday, a rate which rises to more than 40% in Loire-Atlantique and in several departments of Brittany.
“When everyone tries to fill their tank to 100%, the system is not able to respond”, explained the CEO of Esso France, Charles Amyot, Thursday during a press conference presenting the financial results. According to him, the problem is primarily logistical, on the supply side of crude oil refineries, some ports being blocked, and on the side of gasoline deliveries to stations. Ditto for kerosene, he said, for which it is not “not a stock problem”.
The government says it is ready to requisition three employees of the Esso refinery in Fos-sur-Mer on Tuesday, to resume fuel shipments. And to relieve the stations of the country, these requisitions were renewed for 48 hours. For the TotalEnergies site in Gonfreville-L’Orcher, the prefecture did not send police to the employees to deliver the requisition letters but it dispatched a bailiff on Wednesday evening, according to Alexis Antonioli, CGT general secretary of the refinery.
Thursday morning, twenty employees were still gathered with trade unionists, refusing to enter the refinery.
The State attacks a “symbol” to “break the strike movement”
“The social movement is based on key sectors which are capable of having a very strong blocking impact, including that of refineries in the first place, so it was very important to come here to support them because it also rests on their shoulders. »Alma Dufour, LFI deputy present on the picket line, told AFP.
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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, whose secretary general declares:
“The management limits itself to making the same proposals made to us during the night, telling us that they may agree to negotiate with the prefect the suspension of the requisitions, but the counterpart is to ship kerosene, which is totally absurd, because it amounts to making us ship what they are requisitioning us for. »
For the trade unionist, beyond the quantities of kerosene, which are relatively modest, the State wishes to tackle a ” symbol “that of the first refinery to cease production, and thus “break the strike movement”.
TotalEnergies only has one in four refineries still in operation, at 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 other than the strike. The only French refinery of the Petroineos company in Lavéra (Bouches-du-Rhône) also stopped because of the strike.
The two Esso-ExxonMobil refineries, in Port-Jérôme-Gravenchon and Fos-sur-Mer are still running, but fuel shipments remain blocked, according to the CGT.