No oil product tankers of Handysize class or larger have loaded or unloaded in almost two weeks at the southern French port complex of Fos-Lavera, usually among the busiest trading hubs in the Mediterranean, as strikes have halted docking operations.
Fos-Lavera's biggest product import is diesel, but none of that product has unloaded since 4 March, Vortexa data shows. The most common product to load is gasoline. The Handysize High Discovery was supposed to load gasoline at Fos-Lavera on 12 March, but has waited at the port ever since, suggesting it may have run into difficulties. Some smaller coaster vessels have loaded gasoline in recent days from the port, but nothing larger.
Dock workers at Fos and Lavera have been on strike since 13 March and voted today to extend the action by a further week to 31 March. In the same area, strikes have halted Petroineos' 207,100 b/d Lavera refinery.
Fos-Lavera accounted for around 5pc of the diesel and gasoil discharged around the Mediterranean basin in 2022 and around 10pc of the gasoline loaded.
The consensus among traders of different products is that stored volumes at terminals within France are probably being depleted heavily, although precise data on this is not yet available. For context, Eurostat data suggests that French diesel stockpiles were depleted by around 650,000t month on month in September 2022, when strikes began to shut down the country's refining capacity last year. That impact was moderated by the fact that docks were still mostly working and imports into the country could accelerate sharply.
With French diesel imports now lower than normal, in spite of refining shut-ins, diesel traders said the international diesel market is somewhat better supplied in the short term. But they add it may get much tighter when strikes relax enough to allow French importers to restock.
The last fuel oil cargo to load from Fos-Lavera was on board the Medium Range (MR) Seaexpress on 6 March and it headed to Barcelona. It was chartered by ExxonMobil, which runs the 133,000 b/d Fos refinery. More recently, market participants said that ExxonMobil has needed to pull fuel oil cargoes from the east Mediterranean to meet its obligations in the west, as strikes are preventing any deliveries from the refinery, even with it still operating for the time being.
As an indirect disruption, product traders said that the strikes are making it more difficult to access tankers for products, because so many are now occupied waiting to load or unload around France.
