Strikers at France's top oil port blocked more tankers on Tuesday as their deadlock with management started to hit gasoline supply and threatened to halt refineries in a few days, according to Reuters. Some 30 vessels with crude and oil products were blocked at Fos-Lavera near the Mediterranean port of Marseille, one of the world's biggest ports, up from 27 on Monday. On Corsica, fully dependent on supplies from Marseille, only emergency vehicles had access to petrol stations as the French island was expecting a boat with gasoline on Wednesday to help it ease the fuel crisis, the local authorities said. A source at the CGT union, which has led the movement, said late on Tuesday that strikers had decided to prolong their action until Wednesday, when they are due to meet other unions in a bid to join forces in a move that could drastically cut gasoline supplies to pump stations. "The port has offered all possible job guarantees to the strikers, what else can the port offer?" a port spokeswoman said. The strikers want job guarantees as part of a port reform and are also protesting against President Nicolas Sarkozy's pension reform to raise the retirement age to 62 from 60, which has already sparked several waves of nationwide protests. France's next big day of national strikes is set for Oct. 12, coinciding with the date cited by unions for some refineries to halt production due to crude oil shortages. The CGT union is trying to use the Fos-Lavera blockade as a lever for a national cross-sector strike to defeat the government on the controversial and unpopular pension reforms. The strike has already trimmed fuel output at six refineries in France, pushing up European benchmark gasoline barge prices and creating concern that the idling of refineries could leas to an oversupply of unwanted feedstock crude oil. The plants served by the port can process over 1 million barrels per day -- around 7 percent of Europe's total capacity. Reuters calculations showed at least 6.5 million barrels of oil were stuck in 11 tankers at the port, according to the latest available breakdown. "What is happening in Fos-Lavera is clearly having an impact on oil product prices," said Christophe Barret, oil analyst at Credit Agricole. "It has cut runs and tightened supplies of middle distillates in Europe, dragging diesel into Europe from all over the world. And this is coming ahead of the winter heating oil season," he said. On Tuesday, ICE gas oil futures eased down from a five-month high ahead of an expected influx of distillates from Asia and the United States. A fleet of cargoes carrying 400,000 tonnes of the motor fuel diesel was set to arrive in northwest Europe in the first half of October from the U.S. Gulf, traders told Reuters. France's oil industry lobby and a transport ministry source said three-month strategic oil stocks were so far untouched despite union officials saying Total's La Mede refinery had started using them. "The strategic oil stock is used at the Manosque site but it is not cut on a national level," the ministry source said. The seven refineries dependent on the Fos-Lavera oil hub were expected to run out of crude stocks in around one week, France's oil industry lobby said on Monday. The port strike would have to last another 2-1/2 weeks for motorists to start feeling the pinch, it added. The transport ministry source said it would take at least "several weeks" before supply woes started. But on Corsica industry experts said petrol stations could face a fuel shortage in days if refiners joined the strike. The unions of the port and oil major Total were still in talks to carry out joint actions before the national strike of Oct. 12, however no agreement had yet been found on a joint strike.
