Oil giant ExxonMobil cuts part of its sites in France, 677 jobs doomed to disappear

Hundreds of employees soon in difficulty? THE American oil giant ExxonMobil announced Thursday a reduction in its activities in Port-Jérôme (Normandy), which “should lead to the elimination of 677 jobs”, as well as a proposed sale, via its subsidiary Esso France, of the Fos-sur-Mer refinery and fuel depots in the south of France to a Swiss consortium.

Several petrochemical units, not “economically viable”, including a steam cracker, will be shut down on the Gravenchon site, in Port-Jérôme-sur-Seine, near Le Havre (Seine-Maritime), the group indicated in a press release.

ExxonMobil promises to initiate a “search for individual and collective solutions” for employees affected by job cuts and specifies that “no departure is envisaged before 2025”.

“This is a terrible announcement for employees and their families,” reacted Thursday the Minister of Industry, Roland Lescure. “The group has an absolute obligation to offer reclassification prospects for employees and development for the site. »

A “non-competitive” site

To explain these difficulties, ExxonMobil pointed to “the configuration of the steam cracker” and “its size compared to large newly built units”, but also cyclical factors such as “higher operating and energy costs in Europe” which “make it not competitive “.

“Chemicals actually experienced a loss of 300 million in 2023 but the profit from oil is 1 billion over the same period”, reacted Thursday Pierre-Antoine Auger, elected (FO) of the CSE on the Port-Jérôme site . “We feel sadness and anger, we don’t yet know how we are going to react,” according to him.

The Port-Jérôme refinery, who was the victim of a fire in a distillation unit on March 11causing five minor injuries, will continue its activities, the group said.

A subsidiary of ExxonMobil, Esso France also announced on Thursday its plan to sell its Fos-sur-Mer refinery (Bouches-du-Rhône) to the company Rhône Énergies, as well as that of the Esso depots in Toulouse and Villette-de. -Vienna (Isère).

The candidate for the takeover, Rhône Énergies, a Swiss consortium made up of the trading giant Trafigura and the American refinery operator Entara, is committed to “maintaining the employment of the 310 employees on the site”, explained Dereck Becht, Director of Operations of Entara.

Increasing energy costs

The Port-Jérôme and Fos-sur-Mer refineries have refining capacities of 12 and 7 million tonnes respectively. They are one of eight conventional refineries in France (seven in mainland France and one in Martinique), according to the Ministry of Ecological Transition. The sector employs between 5,000 and 10,000 direct jobs, according to Ufip, the union of oil companies.

This reorganization of ExxonMobil’s activities in France comes against a backdrop of difficulties for employees of French oil platforms. This is due in particular to excessively high energy costs, because refining must buy its energy to operate, in particular gas and electricity. But “the natural gas in France costs on a stable basis about twice as much as it cost before Covid. And before Covid, it already cost much more than what it costs in North America,” according to the president of Ufip, Olivier Gantois.

Another stone in the sand, the decline in demand for petroleum products, with oil heating losing momentum and the gradual electrification of the automobile fleet. But “we believe that the Fos-sur-Mer refinery is a competitive refinery,” said Dereck Becht, who believes in the future of refineries in France. “It is promised a long lifespan, and we plan to continue to invest in reducing energy consumption” and in “reducing carbon intensity,” according to him.

In the sector, the time has come for the conversion of refineries into biorefineries, which produce biomass-based fuels, such as in La Mède (Bouches-du-Rhône) and Grandpuits (Seine-et-Marne), projects which resulted in restructuring. These two sites each went from nearly 400 employees to around 250, according to TotalEnergies.

“In 2050, in France, there will perhaps still be one, or even several, refineries processing oil,” estimates Olivier Gantois. “But there will be others that no longer process it, and it is likely that those that still process oil will at that point process a mixture of oil and biomass.”