MOSCOW (MRC) -- French CGT union workers have suspended their strike at Total's Donges and Feyzin refineries, but the strike at the company's Gonfreville refinery in Normandy will continue until Wednesday, two union officials told Reuters.
A union official at the 220-Mbpd Donges refinery said workers there voted on Friday to suspend the strike until June 14, and preparations to restart operations will commence on Friday evening. It could take up to a week for the refinery to be back to full output capacity.
Workers also voted to suspend the strike at the 117-Mbpd Feyzin refinery, but decided to extend the strike at the 247-Mbpd Gonfreville site until Wednesday.
Total said that preliminary moves to restart production at the three refineries were progressing, while work was continuing normally at five other petrochemical sites, including at its petrochemical plant in Carling in eastern France and at its naphtha chemical plant in the south.
It added that trucks were also loading refined products at all its refineries and fuel depots without hindrance from striking workers.
The three-week oil sector strike, part of a nationwide rolling protest against a planned government labor reform, led to a temporary production halt at refineries, blockades at oil ports, depots and terminals, and fuel supply disruption across France.
We remind that, as MRC informed previously, in December 2014, Total, Europe’s third-largest oil company, permanently shut its high density polyethylene (HDPE) line in Belgium. The plant was shut permanently owing to weak margins which have arisen on account of cheap imports in the region. Located at Antwerp in Belgium, the line has a production capacity of 70,000 mt/year.
Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world with business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. The company's petrochemical products cover two main groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them
MRC