Page 47 - Nigeria one mag 4 edition en

Strike in the refineries and oil depots in France

France consumes 46 million tons of fuel each year. To
cover its needs, it imports crude oil and finished
products, such as diesel fuel. Crude oil is imported by
tanker to three ports: Le Havre (Seine-Maritime), Saint-
Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique) and Marseille. It is then
processed into various products, both energy (fuels)
and non-energy (lubricants, bitumen and
petrochemicals), in six industrial refining platforms,
which are those of Total (3), Esso (2) and Petroineos
(1).
After processing in refineries, the various fuels are
transported by a network of pipelines, barges and
ships and by train to "downstream" oil sites. The bulk
(67%) is transported through a series of pipelines
including : the Le Havre-Paris pipeline (LHP), the Ile-
de-France pipeline (PLIF), the Mediterranean Rhone
Pipeline (PMR), the Donges-Melun-Metz pipeline
(DMM), and the pipelines between Fos and Manosque.
Fuels are also stored, before being transported to the
country's service stations. France has an overall
Oil depots, Illustrative image
storage capacity for petroleum products of around 46
With nearly a third of service stations short of fuel and million m3. Refineries and their auxiliary depots
motorists on the edge of a breakdown, the government account for about 33% of this capacity, storage caves
decided to requisition the first staff to try to supply the 20%, airports 1%. A network of approximately 200
country in the face of the growing gasoline shortage secondary depots of various sizes, spread throughout
caused by the strike at refineries and fuel depots. the country, supplies the metropolis. They represent
The first employees requisitioned allowed to release 47% of French storage capacity.
the first stocks of fuel by pipeline (7,000 cubic meters The distribution of stocks on the metropolitan territory
of the depot of Gravenchon in Normandy in twenty- is not homogeneous. The proximity of refining
four hours) and twenty-five tankers from Dunkirk by facilities and import sites, as well as the infrastructure
road. for the mass transportation of petroleum products,
These depots are the main source of gasoline and influences this distribution. Thus, 50% of French
diesel supplies in France. The country has about 45 storage capacity is concentrated in the Normandy and
million vehicles - 38.3 million light vehicles, 5.9 million Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur regions.
commercial vehicles and 700,000 heavy goods vehicles In addition, France has strategic stocks equivalent to
, with some 200 depots that supply the network of three months of consumption. These stocks, managed
service stations by the Société anonyme de gestion des stocks de
By disrupting the smooth operation of the depots, the sécurité (Sagess), represented 13.9 Mt in 2018 and are
strikers have interrupted the supply of the thousands distributed in nearly 90 sites. A major underground
of service stations in France; nearly half of them storage facility of 9.2 million m3 is located in
belong to large and medium-sized retailers and Manosque; occupying huge salt caverns, between 350
account for 63% of the volumes distributed, compared meters and 1,000 meters underground, it is connected
with the 37% distributed by the 6,000 stations of the to the refineries and plants in Fos, Marseille and to
traditional networks. The country’s total service international pipeline networks. It is from these stocks
stations counted five million daily fill-ups, serving 118 that the government decided to draw to cope with the
million liters of fuel per day. shortage that is affecting France.

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