Fuel: slight increase in the number of filling stations with a shortage of gasoline or diesel fuel

Two days before the day of the mobilization against pension reform, which will involve the oil trade union CGT, on Monday morning, about 3.75% of French gas stations were short of petrol or diesel. These public data, analyzed by AFP, do not cause concern over the weekend, say in the oil sector.

Those numbers are a far cry from the more than 40% seen on the national average at the height of the strike at TotalEnergies and Esso-ExxonMobil refineries last October, with shortages even worse in some regions. But they are higher than the 0.5% observed, for example, on Monday, January 2.

“We don’t have any information from our members indicating there could be problems, nor any specific alarm,” Ufip Energies and Mobility, an organization representing France’s oil sector, told AFP. pension reform.

The statistics are based on data available on the prix-carburants.gouv.fr website and cover approximately 10,000 points of sale. This national average masks regional differences, with almost one in five stations in Yvelines (18%) and more than one in ten (13%) in Pas de Calais affected on Monday. In these two divisions, 5% of the stations were dry; They didn’t have diesel or petrol. In four other departments (Hauts-de-Seine, Loire-et-Cher, Mayenne and Essonne), fuel shortages affect 10 to 11% of stations.

“There is no shortage of fuel at our stations,” says TotalEnergies.

According to tank crews, one or more products usually run out after the weekend while waiting for resupply. “We confirm that there is no shortage of fuel at our stations. In addition, stocks at the depot and service stations are at a satisfactory level,” TotalEnergies said in a statement on Monday.

The group “regrets that the conditions set by the CGT are intended to block the refineries and therefore hamper the mobility of the French” and says it is working with the authorities “who ensure that the territory is adequately supplied”. “We are not at all in the same situation as in October, when we accumulated a shortage of stocks after people in September, with panic and prudent purchases, rushed to use the state discount,” Ufip emphasizes.

At the same time, diesel fuel stabilized last week in France at an average price of 1.8846 euros per liter, down 1.48 cents from the previous week, according to data from the Ministry of Energy, stopped on Friday and released on Monday. The unleaded 95 averaged €1.8572 per litre, while the unleaded 95-E10 averaged €1.8365, each having risen in price by less than a penny in a week.