Strikes end at French refineries, oil ports

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31 Oct 2010

Weeks of strikes at French oil refineries and the country's two largest oil ports ended on Friday, opening the way for fuel output to resume soon, after walkouts which caused widespread shortages at petrol pumps.

Workers at Fos-Lavera and Le Havre, France's top two oil terminals, and at six of the country's 12 refineries voted to end strikes, unions said, as protests continued to subside against a government pension bill passed this week.
Protests had eased at some refineries earlier this week but the strike at Fos-Lavera over a separate port reform had been deadlocked until Friday's vote ended the 33-day stoppage.
Oil refiners said it would take several days to resume production of fuel products because of technical procedures and as it was not yet clear when crude supply would arrive from Mediterranean port Fos-Lavera.
"It will take over a week on average, with variations from one site to another, to restart the installations," said a spokesman for Total.
The group estimated the strikes had cost it about 100 million euros ($139 million), Chief Financial Officer Patrick de la Chevaudiere told a conference call on third-quarter results.
Exxon Mobil had resumed pumping crude from Le Havre to its Port-Jerome refinery, and expected production to get back to normal "in the middle of next week", a spokeswoman said.
Ramping up production at Exxon's Fos-sur-Mer plant, which maintained minimum output during the Fos-Lavera blockade by bringing in alternative crude supply, would depend on the post-strike unloading schedule at the port, she said.
A spokesman for LyondellBasell said the company's Berre L'Etang refinery would take two days to restart once it started receiving crude oil from Fos-Lavera.
The Mediterranean oil hub supplies six French refineries, together with two more in Switzerland and Germany. The oil terminals at Le Havre in the north supply four French plants.
The port of Marseille, which oversees the Fos-Lavera terminals, said it would take about four weeks to clear a backlog of 82 vessels held up by the month-long strike, while shipping sources say it would take a two weeks to handle the 38 crude oil tankers currently queuing.
Strikes over pension reform ended on Friday at five Total refineries -- Donges, Dunkirk, Feyzin, Gonfreville and Grandpuits plants -- as well as at Ineos' Lavera plant.
"We are realistic, we're not hardliners," said a CGT official at the Gonfreville plant.
"It's not the refineries against the pension reform, it's a much broader movement. We wouldn't have been credible continuing if it was just our sector," he said, referring to flagging opposition to the pension bill that is set to become law.
At Fos-Lavera, the CGT union said staff returned to work after obtaining guarantees about their conditions as part of a contested reform of French ports.
Shortages due to the strikes at oil ports and refineries, together with sporadic blocking of fuel depots, continued to affect around a 15 percent of outlets on Friday, according to the government, down from a quarter earlier this week. The situation should be back to normal by the middle of next week, it added.
The strikes had prompted the government to allow distributors to use industry reserves.
One refinery, Total's Dunkirk facility, is no longer in production pending closure, although striking workers had prevented fuel stocks from being shipped out.

Source: Reuters