TotalEnergies says no progress on French oil strikes

: Crude oil, Oil products
22/10/13

TotalEnergies said today that no progress has been made yet on resuming oil product deliveries to service stations from its French oil depots and refineries, where workers remain on strike in a dispute over pay.

The necessary conditions to organise negotiations between all the representative unions have not been met because members of the CGT union are still blocking deliveries, the company said. TotalEnergies initially demanded that operations at refineries resume as a condition for starting negotiations, but it is now saying that it only wants deliveries from depots to restart. The company had wanted deliveries to resume at 05:00 local time (04:00 GMT) but the CGT refused. "We consulted the strikers and they refused by a massive majority, they don't accept this requirement to negotiate," the union said.

The CGT called a strike at TotalEnergies' French refineries last month. The industrial action first shut the firm's 246,900 b/d Gonfreville refinery — France's largest — and its 109,300 b/d Feyzin refinery. Staff at the company's Carling petrochemical site, its Flanders logistics depot and its 500,000 t/yr La Mede hydrotreated vegetable oil plant also downed tools.

Workers at TotalEnergies' third French refinery — the 219,000 b/d Donges plant — voted to start a strike from 12 October, after the French prime minister Elisabeth Borne said the government would requisition workers at ExxonMobil's French refineries to resume oil product deliveries. Workers at ExxonMobil's 236,000 b/d Port Jerome refinery, the adjacent Gravenchon petrochemical plant and the firm's 133,000 b/d Fos refinery have been on strike for over three weeks, also over pay. The requisition announcement led to the industrial action being renewed on 12 October. The government has called back two workers a day at Port Jerome and oil product flows from stocks resumed through the pipeline supplying the Paris region yesterday.

TotalEnergies met with CGT representatives yesterday to discuss the situation, after the government said it would also requisition workers at its facilities if no progress was made on negotiations.

By Caroline Varin and Adam Porter

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