Fuel: supply to Ile-de-France has restarted

Europe 1 with AFP 11:14 am, March 24, 2023

The supply of fuels to the Paris basin by the large refinery of TotalEnergies of Gonfreville-L'Orcher in Normandy resumed Friday after an intervention of the police, said the Minister of Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher. "The pumping has restarted" and "this makes it possible to supply the Ile-de-France," said the minister, questioned by RMC on the intervention of the police in the night to unblock the refinery of Gonfreville-L'Orcher in Normandy and allow requisitioned employees to take their service.

"Ultra-targeted requisitions"

"These are ultra-targeted requisitions, we are talking about three or four employees who must take their service," added the minister. According to Eric Sellini, national coordinator CGT Chimie, "it is just the shipments that will resume, very partially and if they succeed, and on a single product, kerosene because Paris airports are dry". The energy sector (gas, oil, electricity) has been particularly mobilized since 19 January against the government's pension reform.

"Now, with depots on strike, and five out of six refineries shut down, the goal is to hold out until the withdrawal" of the text, added Eric Sellini. The government has for its part "three to four months" of stocks "to face any type of crisis" and in which the government draws since early March, recalled Ms. Agnès Pannier-Runacher. "The issue is not stocks but logistics," she said.

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The TotalEnergies refinery, the largest in France, feeds a "very powerful" pipeline, the minister said. "It's important that it can work. The best way to supply the intermediate stocks that then supply gas stations is to push the fuel into those pipelines," she added.