“We started the week badly, but I think it will improve significantly during the course of this week. The service stations of Ile-de-France, very affected by fuel shortages, should experience a “clear improvement” this week, despite persistent strikes against the pension reform, assured Monday the oil companies union (Ufip). Ufip explains that car fuel pumping to the Paris region has started.
Across the country, last week, “we started at 17% of stations in difficulty (lack of at least one product) throughout France (15.7% according to data analyzed by AFP), and we finished at 9%”, recalled Olivier Gantois, president of Ufip, who underlines that the figure of nearly 11% observed on Monday (10.3% according to data analyzed by AFP) “confirms the trend improvement”, despite an increase due to the absence of deliveries on Saturday afternoon and Sunday.
Unleaded, main difficulty
“On the other hand, there is a hard point, it is lead-free in Ile-de-France”, underlined Olivier Gantois. According to him, on diesel, there are “no more problems than elsewhere we are in the 9, 10% (out of stations), on the other hand, in unleaded, we are between a third and a half of stations that run out of lead-free”. A situation due, according to him, to fears relating to the lack of kerosene in Parisian airports ten days ago and which had prompted the government to make requisitions at the Normandy refinery of TotalEnergies.
“It’s called undressing Paul to dress Jean”, explained Olivier Gantois, according to whom “all these products go through the same pipeline to go to Ile-de-France”: “when there was this concern at the airports of Paris, jet fuel supplies have overtaken unleaded supplies,” he said.
In the Top 10 of the most affected departments
“Since then, we have put lead-free back into the pipeline in order to replenish the depots in the Paris region, but it was still tense at the end of last week: I think that this week, as the pumping is going to happen, the situation will improve very markedly in Ile-de-France, ”he added.
All the departments of Ile-de-France are on Monday in the top 10 of the departments most affected by shortages, according to government data analyzed by AFP.
Essonne is the most affected department (50.4%), ahead of Val-de-Marne (50%), Indre-et-Loire (48.4%), Hauts-de-Seine (43 .4%), Yvelines (39.5%), Seine-Saint-Denis (38.2%) and Paris (38.2%). Shortages that mainly affect the super unleaded.