A prolonged blockage of refineries could complicate the supply of fuel to service stations.
The strikers of TotalEnergies have renewed Saturday the movement for wages in three of the five French refineries of the group, at the call of the CGT which would like to register the movement in the long term. If the Donges (Loire-Atlantique) and Grandpuits (Seine-et-Marne) refineries – currently being converted intobiorefinery“- have, as planned, suspended the movement for this weekend, all other refining sites and fuel depots “are still in the fight“, told AFP Pedro Afonso, elected CGT at the Feyzin refinery (Rhône).
“We’re going to launch a strike fund so that it can lasthe said of the Feyzin refinery, adding that strikers at other sites wanted to take similar action. According to the group’s management, however, there is “only six strikers on the Feyzin site“and operations and work in progress”continue normally” on the platform which is not “not on strike“.
The CGT believes that registering the movement over time could complicate the supply of fuel to service stations. Some have already been faced with unavailability of fuel, a consequence of the rush of motorists (+30% attendance in September) attracted by a discount at the pump granted by the group in order to limit price increases.
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Asked by AFP on Saturday, the management of the hydrocarbon giant reiterated its message from the day before, implicitly confirming tensions over the supply of fuels due to the high attendance, while indicating that “despite the social movements, the resupply (of) stations continues in the context of the price reduction operation“, using “additional logistical resources“. Another consequence of the movement, the shutdown operations of the Normandy refinery, the largest in France, continued on Saturday.
In the event of an effective shutdown of this refinery, which represents more than 20% of the country’s refining capacity, there would only be two refineries in operation out of the eight in mainland France, another strike movement affecting those of Esso-ExxonMobil. The CGT is calling in particular for a salary increase of 10% for the year 2022. For its part, management recalls having granted an average increase of 3.5% at the start of the year and refers to the opening of negotiations, initially planned for January 2023, and brought forward to mid-November in the current context of inflation.