(Reuters) TotalEnergies is temporarily halting production at its 240,000 barrel-per-day Gonfreville refinery, the company said, as strike action in the sector threatens supplies at a time of deepening energy instability.
The shutdown will add to strained supply of refined products in France, with over 60% of the country's refining capacity now offline, according to a Reuters calculations.
Walkouts began at all five of TotalEnergies' French refineries, mainly hitting deliveries.
"The strikers in Normandy demanded the shutdown procedures and the site management finally gave them," CGT union delegate Thierry Defresne said.
The three-day CGT strike at TotalEnergies over wage demands as inflation spirals across Europe is compounding difficulties for the sector, with outages and strikes at other oil refineries impacting output and distribution to buyers.
ExxonMobil oil refineries in France have been forced to limit refined product supply to their customers, a company spokesperson told Reuters on Wednesday. The caps were in accordance with supply contracts, the spokesperson added.
Defresne said no product was leaving Gonfreville, the 102,000 bpd Grandpuits refinery or the La Mede biorefinery. The Feyzin oil refinery is offline for repairs but stocks there were not moving because of the strike, he added.
Product transport from the TotalEnergies' Cote d'Opale fuel storage depots near Dunkirk were also stopped for a second day.
Meanwhile, the strike had been called off by the morning shift on Wednesday at the 230,000 bpd Donges refinery and deliveries were resuming, TotalEnergies said.
TotalEnergies said it had anticipated measures to guarantee supplies across its network of service stations.
However, some fuel pumps ran dry in northern France, where the port town of Dunkirk is located. A TotalEnergies spokesman said this was due to increased demand for its discounted fuel during the month of September, rather than fallout from the strikes.
Last weekend, Exxon shut its 240,000 barrel per day (bpd) Port Jerome-Gravenchon oil refinery, the Notre Dame de Gravenchon Petrochemical site, and the 140,000 bpd Fos-Sur-Mer refinery.
