Strikes cripple French oil refineries, disrupt shipping | Reuters
▻http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-france-politics-protests-oil-idUKKCN0YF26X
Le point de vue des pétroliers
Strikes by French oil sector workers protesting proposed labour reforms spread to all the country’s refineries on Tuesday, sapping petrol stations dry and creating delays for tankers at major ports.
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The impact on the oil price has been limited so far: though the strikes have curbed demand from refineries, Brent crude was up nearly 1 percent on Tuesday at $48.73 a barrel on expectations that data would show a U.S. supply overhang was shrinking.
But with just a couple of weeks to go before the kick-off of the Euro 2016 football tournament in France, which is expected to attract more than a million foreign visitors, the government is under pressure to act quickly to free up flows of crude oil and refined products.
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Crude oil traders said there were no signs yet of distress in the market, of cargoes being diverted to other ports, or of owners of physical barrels being forced to sell at steep discounts just to get rid of their oil.
Still, traders said it was probably just a matter of time before charges on ships for late arrival at destination ports, or demurrage, start to rise and owners of physical cargoes may have to fight harder to find buyers for their oil.
The flip-side for the oil market at least is that with French refineries either shut or running at minimum levels, an overhang of excess refined products in Europe is likely to clear up more quickly.
“The combination of upstream production outages and French strikes are going ... to clean up a bit of the overhang in both crude and products. But it will depend on how long either last,” one trader said.