Government warns Total over refinery shutdown

French government ready to twist Total's arm to keep a refinery in northern France from shutting down.

The French government is ready to pressure Total to prevent it from shutting down a refinery in northern France that would lead to hundreds of job losses, the industry minister said Tuesday.

President Nicolas Sarkozy stepped in this month to tell carmaker Renault that it should not move production of its new Clio model to Turkey and he could do the same with Total, said Christian Estrosi.

- When the president's determination and that of the government is there, we can see that we can reverse, avoid and prevent a certain number of initiatives - said Estrosi on France Info radio.

The government must ''tell the president of Total and his board of directors that we must have a shared vision of the economic development of the Dunkirk factory,'' he added.

The minister later told parliament that Total was considering building a methane plant so as to offset the impact of any closure of the refinery on employment in the region.

Total announced in December that it was considering shutting down its refinery in Flanders, near Dunkirk, which employs 370 people directly and 450 sub-contractors.

Workers at the Flanders plant went on strike on January 12 to protest the planned closure and the factory's works council is due to meet on Monday to discuss the future of the site.

Unlike Renault, which is 15 percent owned by the French state, Total is a wholly private company although the state did have a stake in the oil giant's predecessor Elf.

Total, France's biggest company, last year announced a record profit for 2008 of 13.9 billion euros (20 billion dollars).