Strikes at several refineries across France have left half of its refineries offline or without sending fuel, as refinery workers have stepped up collective action over pay disputes this week
Three of TotalEnergies’ refineries and one storage site are no longer sending fuel on Tuesday, an official from France’s CGT union said. Reuters.
The 240,000 barrel per day (bpd) Gonfreville oil refinery operated by TotalEnergies, the 119,000 bpd Feyzin oil refinery, the La Mède biorefinery and the Côte d’Opale storage site near Dunkirk are not currently sending fuel, CGT delegate Thierry Defresne told Reuters.
The strike is expected to continue until September 29.
Along with the strike ExxonMobil Refineriesaround half of French refining capacity is currently offline.
France’s crude refining capacity is just over 1.4 million bpd, the fourth highest in Europe after Germany, Italy and Spain, according to Oil & Gas data Journal quoted by the EIA.
TotalEnergies has prepared logistically for the announced strike, a spokesman told Reuters.
“In anticipation of the strike, TotalEnergies has taken the necessary logistical measures to be able to supply its network of service stations and its customers normally,” the spokesperson said.
ExxonMobil, for its part, is continuing its dialogue with the unions after the closure at the end of last week of the Port Jérôme-Gravenchon refineries of 240,000 bpd and Fos-Sur-Mer of 235,000 bpd,
The disruption to the French refinery comes amid a deepening energy crisis in Europe, which is trying to secure non-Russian sources of crude ahead of an EU embargo on imports from Russia by sea from from the beginning of December.
Currently, Europe still imports more than 1 million bpd of Russian crudetrying to refuel before the entry into force of the European embargo on imports of Russian oil by sea.
However, the world oil market will have to prepare for a loss of 2.4 million bpd supply when the EU embargo comes into effect; An additional 1m bpd of product and 1.4m bpd of crude will need to find new homes, IEA said.
By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com
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