Pension reform: with refineries on strike, should we fear a fuel shortage?

Noa Moussa, edited by Alexandre Dalifard 08:48, March 09, 2023

Article 7 of the pension reform, which pushes back the legal retirement age to 64, was voted on Wednesday evening in the Senate.

Not enough to appease social protest while waiting for the next demonstration scheduled for this Saturday, the day before the end of the exam in the Senate.

In the meantime, the strike continues in several sectors and in particular transport with on average at the SNCF one TGV out of three and two TER out of five.

At the various airports, 20 to 30% of flights are cancelled.

But the mobilization that worries the most is that of the refineries.

6% of service stations are already short of at least one fuel.

A question arises: should we fear running out of fuel?

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Full fuel stocks

So far, no reason to worry.

And if nearly 6% of service stations are running out of gasoline or diesel, this is not exceptional, according to Olivier Gantois, president of the French Union of Petroleum Industries.

"There is always a certain relatively small percentage of filling stations out of stock. And this is not related to strikes but to the fact that such a station ordered its tanker too late or stations sold much more than expected. Suddenly, the 6% is slightly above the normal level for the percentage of stations out of stock, but nothing indicates a supply problem", informs Olivier Gantois.

Another reason not to run to the pump: the fuel stocks are full.

In total, there is enough to last three to four months.

The most to be feared is the multiplication of motorists' refueling as a precaution.

This is what happened last weekend, when fuel sales increased significantly.

On the side of the power plants, slowdowns, even interruptions of production are noted.

On Wednesday, EDF employees deprived the network of 15,000 megawatt hours.