Fuel shipments blocked at refineries, but no shortage

"The overall message is that there is no supply problem and the situation is improving", despite the renewal of the strikes, Olivier told an annual press conference. Gantois, president of Ufip Energies et Mobilités, which represents companies in the oil sector.

Concern is mounting among consumers because no more fuel comes out of French refineries on strike against the pension reform proposed by the government. The movement has indeed "been renewed on all TotalEnergies sites this morning", told AFP Eric Sellini, national elected representative of the CGT-Chemistry, a union which called for a renewable strike.

Fuel shipments are still blocked in TotalEnergies establishments in La Mède, Donges, the Normandy refinery, Feyzin and Flanders, but not production (except in Donges, stopped for technical reasons). On the Esso-ExxonMobil side, the "strike is also renewed at the Esso refinery in Fos-sur-mer", with 70% of strikers, said the union official.

However, there are 200 depots in France which continue to supply the stations and the refineries themselves continue to produce fuel: petrol and diesel which will have to be stored on site until further notice, for lack of being able to leave .

It would take several days of blockage, if not weeks, before on-site reserves would be full and require the actual shutdown of production for safety reasons. In the meantime, the majority of the tanks of the 10.000 French stations are now filled.

“We had prepared and we had made stocks everywhere”, affirmed Mr. Gantois during the annual conference of Ufip Thursday morning, stressing that “the quantities sent by tank trucks” from the depots “were normal” Wednesday evening.

According to its figures, only 5% of service stations are out of at least one fuel, with regional disparities and peaks at 15% in the Paris basin and western France.

Based on public data from the prix-carburants.gouv.fr site, AFP journalists counted on Wednesday 6% of service stations running out of petrol or diesel, the oil sector calling into question the concern of motorists who would multiply their precautionary fill-ups because of the strikes.