French unions call on ports to halt work for 72 hours from Thursday

London — The Federation of Port and Dock Workers, part of France's CGT labor union, has called for a 72-hour stoppage of port operations from Thursday, it said Wednesday.

It had previously called for a 24-hour stoppage on Thursday and said it would decide on furtheraction on Wednesday.

Shipping sources expected operations to be disrupted at Le Havre, Rouen, Brest, Lorient, Dongesand St. Nazaire, La Pallice, Bordeaux, as well as Fos and Lavera. Operations at the CIM oil terminalat Le Havre have already been affected by the industrial action.

The CGT union told local media that deliveries from seven of the eight French refineries would be blocked until Friday. Earlier it called for further escalation of the industrial action at all refineries over January 7-10, with no products leaving any of the eight plants in France for 96 hours.

Deliveries have been blocked from Total's Feyzin, Fos-sur-Mer, Lavera, Grandpuits, Donges, Gonfreville and La Mede biofuel plant. According to local media, there would be no deliveries out of Donges for the rest of the week and through the weekend. However, oil major Total said the refinerieswere continuing to operate and make products while waiting for the end of the blockades with less than 5% of refinery staff joining the strike.

French labor unions, including the CGT, FO and FSU, called on employees in all sectors to take part in industrial action against the government's pension reforms. The strikes, which started December 5, have been extended several times.

Product loadings have also been disrupted at ExxonMobil's refinery in Fos-sur-Mer, southern France, but have faced only limited disruptions from the company's Gravenchon refinery. On Wednesday,loadings at Gravenchon were back to normal, the company said, with both refineries operating normally.

Union sources said staff at Petroineos' Lavera have resumed the shutdown of units after a pauseover the Christmas and New Year holidays. Staff at the plant started shutting units in December, theCGT said earlier. The company declined to comment.

According to the ministry of ecology Wednesday, six out of the seven refineries have problems with deliveries, but nonetheless supplies at retail stations remained normal.

France has a total of 200 oil terminals, with only three having loading problems Wednesday, theministry said, adding that Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has announced that police forces were ready to intervene to make sure no oil depots were blocked.

In addition to those, there are oil terminals at refineries. Apart from the refinery terminals,no other Total-operated terminal is facing problems, the company said.

More than 98% of the 11,000 service stations still have normal supplies, the ecology ministry also said. As of Wednesday, out of its 3.500 retail stations, only 44 had problems, Total said, adding that as the refinery blockades are planned over January 7-10, the company is well prepared. Italso noted that despite the blockade of product shipments at the Grandpuits refinery near Paris since December 5, the area is well supplied, adding that the outage of the plant in early 2019 as a result of a pipeline leak did not have any impact on product supply.

With ports halting operations on several days in December, and tug boat assistance also disrupted, imports have faced difficulties, meaning France had to use strategic stocks, market sources said at the time.

France held 106 days of net imports in crude and product stocks at the end of September, well above the 90-day requirement of the International Energy Agency.

The ecology ministry said Wednesday stocks were at an excellent level and sufficient to cover more than three months of demand.

-- Elza Turner, elza.turner@spglobal.com

-- Virginie Malicier, virginie.malicier@spglobal.com

-- Chris To, chris.to@spglobal.com

-- Edited by Daniel Lalor, daniel.lalor@spglobal.com