Fuel: to fight against shortages, France opts for imports


Barthélémy Philippe, edited by Romain Rouillard
modified to

7:31 a.m., October 13, 2022

While a third of the country’s service stations are experiencing supply problems due to the refinery strike, the government is trying to activate various levers to compensate for this crisis. In particular, France has considerably increased its imports of refined fuel.

To overcome the fuel shortage that affects nearly a third of the country’s service stations, various levers exist. In particular, the government dipped into its strategic stock, the total volume of which corresponds to 90 days of consumption. The executive also launched Wednesday the requisition of the striking personnel of the refineries of the Esso-ExxonMobil group.

Two provisions accompanied by a considerable increase in the volume of French imports of refined fuel. In normal operation, the activity of French refineries is sufficient to ensure gasoline consumption on a national scale. It is even common for France to export part of its production. With regard to diesel, half of consumption comes from imports.

An increase in exports means soaring prices

However, all these standards have been completely upset by the blockages affecting six of the country’s seven refineries. : “Currently in France more than 50% of consumption comes from imports”, explains the economist Philippe Crevel. “Most of the fuel is transported by boat from Antwerp, Rotterdam or Amsterdam, to Le Havre or Dunkirk, before being routed through the usual distribution channels. Of course, French distributors pay more for these additional imports” , he concedes.

However, this increase in imports is not likely to delight motorists. In recent days, it has led to an increase of 11 to 14 cents in the price per liter at the pump.



Source link -75