Strike May Shut Down French Refineries

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Petroplus Holdings AG (VTX:PPHN) (Zug, Switzerland), Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) (Irving, Texas), Total SA (NYSE:TOT) (Paris, France) and LyondellBassell (Rotterdam, Netherlands) may be forced to shut down refineries located in France because of a strike that began at the end of September at the Fos-Lavéra Port.

On September 27, workers at the Fos-Lavéra Port began striking against a new law that would put French port activities under the auspices of private companies. The strike has a direct impact on the French refining industry, as six of 12 French refineries are supplied from the Fos-Lavéra port:

• the 160,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Total Provence Refinery
• ExxonMobil's 117,000-BBL/d Fos-sur-Mer refinery
• the 218,000-BBL/d Ineos Lavéra refinery
• the 117,000-BBL/d Total Feyzin refinery
• the 105,000-BBL/d LyondellBasell Berre l'étang refinery
• Petroplus' 85,000-BBL/d Reichstett refinery

The 68,000-BBL/d Cressier refinery in the Neu Châtel canton in Switzerland also feeds from the Fos-Lavéra terminal.

Some of the refineries have already started to process at minimum levels, while others are working at normal conditions. However, if the strike continues, the seven refineries supplied by the Fos-Lavéra Port could stop processing within a week.

Separately, the Confédération Générale du Travail and other labor unions are planning a national strike to take place on October 12 against a government plan to increase the retirement age from 60 to 62 years. This will be the third national strike in a month that may impact refinery production.

On September 7, four of Total's six refineries in France lowered their production to minimal rates for two days as a consequence of national labor forces strikes. For related information, see September 13, 2010, article - France's Total Refineries Operating at Normal Rates After Strike.

A similar situation occurred in February 2010, when five Total refineries shut down most of their processing units for nine days to support employees from Total's Flandres refinery. For related information, see February 26 article - Total French Refineries Resuming Activities After a Seven Day Strike.

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