Strikes disrupt French fuel deliveries, but participation waning

FRONT LINE

Amid a cost-of-living crisis fuelled by inflation, another question is how long and how often workers can afford to strike.

“Oil workers are against this (pension) reform but they don’t want to be on the front line,” said a CGT union representative for Exxonmobil.

“The goal is to keep pressure on the government and to encourage workers from other sectors to mobilize … (but there is) nothing spectacular planned at our sites, no well-organized pickets or blockages,” the union representative added.

A spokesperson for Esso, whose two French refinery sites are run by ExxonMobil, said only truck loading operations were suspended at Fos, with everything else operating normally.

A union representative added that production at the Port Jerome site was slightly impacted.

TotalEnergies also said fuel shipments were disrupted at its La Mede, Donges, and Normandy sites, but added it continued to make sure petrol stations were supplied. It added its refinery site at Feyzin was not affected.

The strike ended at the Dunkirk site, however, and shipments are expected to resume.

A CGT union representative for TotalEnergies estimated that around 60 per cent of union members were on strike on Thursday across all sites, down from at least 70 per cent last week.

So far, the industrial action has not had a significant impact on wholesale European refined product prices, as the market awaits whether refinery output will be curtailed. 

Any disruption to diesel production in Europe would boost prices, especially ahead of a Feb 5 EU ban on oil products imports from Russia, a major supplier to the continent.