Imports, consumption, emissions… Franceinfo takes stock of the place that oil occupies in the country and continues to undermine commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The world has never consumed so much. With China’s reopening after the Corona crisis and the increase in air traffic, 2023 is expected to break a new record for oil consumption. In France, the trend is towards a slight decline, but black gold has long been a historic source of energy in the country and is still widely used: almost 28% of primary energy consumption comes from oil, second only to nuclear power.
Where does our oil come from? In what forms is it consumed? Are we really burning less and less? While energy debates often focus on issues related to electricity, renewable energy and nuclear energy, Franceinfo takes stock of the scale of this fossil energy, which is still central to France and emits a lot of gas. Greenhouse effect.
Almost a quarter of our oil comes from Russia and Saudi Arabia
France’s supply of crude oil and refined products depends almost entirely on foreign countries. According to preliminary data from the Professional Petroleum Committee (CPDP) for 2022, France imported 40.6 million tons of crude oil, plus 42.2 million tons of refined products. As for crude oil, our main suppliers are Kazakhstan, Nigeria and the United States. For the latter, imported quantities have only increased since 2018. When it comes to finished products (diesel, kerosene, etc.), the leading countries of origin are Russia (also in 2022), the Bas region and Saudi Arabia.
To get a more global idea of the origins of the oil consumed in France, we aggregated the last five years of import data, combining the figures for crude oil and refined products. Thus, according to these calculations, almost 25% of the oil processed or consumed in France comes from Russia and Saudi Arabia.
But who said there is no oil in France? According to CPDP, around 600,000 tons of oil actually came from French underground in 2022. A number divided by three since the late 1980s, a time when the Paris and Aquitaine basins were at their peak of production. Today, oil “made in France” represents less than 1% of national consumption. The currently operating wells are primarily operated by a subsidiary of the Canadian company Vermilion Rep. In 2017, Parliament passed a law banning new hydrocarbon exploration projects.
According to CPDP data for 2022, of the 82.8 million tons of imported oil, 66.2 are used for domestic consumption, 14.1 are exported as refined products and 1.2 million tons are consumed in international maritime transport.
Three ports, seven refineries and 200 storage depots in France
Crude oil enters France through the three ports that can receive and store it: Le Havre (Seine-Maritime), Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique) and Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône). It is also home to some refineries that convert crude oil into refined products. There are six in France, operated by TotalEnergies (Gonfreville, Donges, Feyzin), Esso (Fos, Gravenchon) and Petroineos (Lavera). A seventh is in Martinique.
The products refined in this way then cross France via kilometers of oil pipelines and reach the 200 secondary depots where around 10 million m3 of fuel can be stored. France also has 25 depots for receiving and storing imports of already refined oil. According to the French Petroleum Industry Association (UFIP) Energies et Mobilités (PDF), strategic stocks allow covering three months’ consumption. Some departments are better equipped than others from an inventory perspective, as the map below shows.
Oil burned during transport, but not only
If one third of our energy consumption depends on oil, economic sectors vary greatly in their dependence on this energy. In pole position: transport, which relies 90% on oil due to fuel consumption. This is followed by agriculture and fishing with an oil share of 70%, as shown in the following graphic. Since the 1990s, the service sector, industry and the residential sector (housing, housing) have reduced their dependence on this fossil energy, so that in 2022 between 9 and 12% of their energy consumption will come from oil. These three sectors also consume a lot of gas, another energy source that emits greenhouse gases.
Logically, it is transport that also consumes the largest share of refined products in France, at 60%. This is shown in the following graphic, with the annual consumption of diesel and gasoline in France shown in yellow and green and aviation fuels, so-called jet fuels, in sky blue. However, these products do not represent all products derived from crude oil. Petrochemicals also consume about 10% of all petroleum products. According to statistics from the Ministry for Energy Transition (PDF), this industry converts raw materials into chemicals or plastics, among other things. The share of domestic heating oil, the use of which for heating houses will soon disappear, is gradually decreasing, but today still accounts for more than 6.3% of consumption.
The graph above also allows us to see the key changes in petroleum products in their entirety, as all the curves are on top of each other. While the use of heavy oil increased total consumption to over 100 billion tons in the 1970s, this value fell until 1985. Driven by the widespread use of automobiles, the use of petroleum products then increased again until 2001. Since then, the number has been declining , notes the Ministry of Ecological Transition. This long-term trend is mainly driven by the industrial, housing and tertiary sectors.”
Diesel and gasoline are well established in our areas of operation
Oil consumption in the transport sector is hardly decreasing. And for good reason: according to our calculations based on data from the Ministry for Ecological Transition, 97.7% of the private car fleet in 2022 consisted of diesel or gasoline-powered cars. Overall, the size of this vehicle fleet is constantly increasing. And we are seeing a shift in the trend between diesel, which has long been favored by favorable tax policies, and gasoline. The first share accounted for 64% of the fleet in 2015, but is gradually being reduced in favor of gasoline engines, whose share has increased from 35 to 42% over the last six years.
In the following graphic you can compare the shares of the individual energy sources within the vehicle fleet, but also within new registrations. In the latter, the proportion of electric cars is increasing sharply But it’s far from reversing the trend across the park. Overall, fuel consumption in road transport in France has been stable since the early 2000s, according to data from the Ministry for Ecological Transition.
The challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Report after report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reiterates: Human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels such as oil (which, along with coal and gas, accounts for 64% of CO2 emissions according to the IPCC), have led to unprecedented increases in CO2 emissions. concentration in the atmosphere and a warming of the average temperature on Earth.
Not surprisingly, the sectors that emit the most CO2 are the ones that use the most fossil fuels. According to the High Council for Climate (PDF), transport is responsible for 31% of greenhouse gases in France, half of which come from cars. Currently, France is trying to meet its commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: emissions calculated by the Interprofessional Technical Center for Air Pollution Studies (Citepa) since 2019 have been well below the limit set in the second National Strategy for the Reduction of CO2 Emissions (2019, 2019). . in orange below), but well above the threshold set by the First in 2015 (in red).
“The whole challenge is to convince people to consume less,” explains Jean-Nicolas Fiatte of the CPDP. “Aside from the price signal and the associated increase in oil taxes, I don’t see any way we could do that.” It’s not just individuals who can convince. “We have difficulty making drastic policies on fuels because it is a huge source of money for the state,” explains Anna Creti, professor of economics at the Dauphine University in Paris.