(qlmbusinessnews.com via bbc.co.uk – – Wed, 29th Sept 2021) London, Uk – –
Soldiers will be delivering fuel in the next couple of days in a bid to ease petrol supply issues, the business secretary has said.
Kwasi Kwarteng admitted the past few days – which have seen long queues outside petrol stations and some pumps running dry – had been “difficult”.
However, he denied there was a crisis in UK fuel supplies and said the situation was “stabilising”.
Some 150 military drivers are ready to drive the fuel tankers.
Asked if the government should be deploying the Army now, rather than keeping them on standby, Mr Kwarteng said: “It takes a couple of days, sometimes a few days to get troops on the ground.
“We've decided to do that and I think in the next couple of days, people will see some soldiers driving the tanker fleet.”
Asked whether the decision to suspend competition laws and issue emergency visas showed there was a crisis, Mr Kwarteng said: “No, I don't think so. The last few days have been difficult.
“We've seen large queues but I think the situation is stabilising. We're getting petrol into the forecourts and yesterday that was matched by the sales.”
On Tuesday, speaking for the first time since issues began at filling stations, Prime Minister Boris Johnson also sought to reassure drivers about supplies, saying that people should be “confident” to go about their business.
But Labour said the government had let the country “crash from crisis to crisis” – with leader Sir Keir Starmer expected to highlight the issue in a key conference speech later.
Fuel supplies are plentiful at refineries but a shortage of tanker drivers caused problems with deliveries to a small number of filling stations last week.
Reports of pumps running dry at some garages then subsequently led to a surge in demand.
A government source confirmed reports that 16% of all petrol stations were now fully supplied with fuel, compared with 10% at the weekend during some of the worst of the fuel rush.
The source said that 40% of petrol stations being fully supplied was a more normal figure before demand spiked.
The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) said there were “early signs” the pressure was starting to ease at the pumps.
The PRA, which represents nearly 5,500 of the UK's 8,000 stations, said about 37% of its sites had run out of fuel – compared with two-thirds being without on Sunday.
Sainsbury's, which has 315 filling stations, said it was still “experiencing high demand for fuel” and that “all our sites continue to receive fuel”.
A hypothetical analysis by BBC Two's Newsnight estimated that it would take about eight days for every vehicle in the UK to fill up under current higher levels of demand.
With the crisis having started five days ago, some experts are predicting that the balance between demand and supply could even out by Saturday.
Brian Madderson, chairman of the PRA, said: “Potentially, we could reach a point of some equilibrium between supply and demand towards this weekend.”
But the Times reported industry sources as saying disruption could “continue for weeks” because of the time it will take to restock petrol stations.
James Spencer, managing director at fuel supplier Portland Fuel, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme “logically the worst is behind us” and said there might be a dip in demand due to lots of people having already filled up their tanks.
But Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Driver Association, said that the situation was “not getting better”, with 25% to 30% of his members unable to work on Tuesday because they could not get fuel.
He called for an essential users list to be brought in to “take the sting out of this crisis”.
The UK is estimated to be short of about 100,000 lorry drivers – causing problems for a range of industries, including food suppliers and supermarkets, in recent months.
The prime minister said on Tuesday he would not seek to prioritise essential workers at pumps because things were “stabilising”.
He said panic buying of petrol had followed a “slightly misleading” account of the shortages of lorry drivers which caused an “understandable surge in public demand”.
“The actual number of lorry drivers that we're short in that particular sector isn't very big. But generally there is a shortage in that profession around the world,” he said.
Mr Johnson said the government was taking action to ensure there were enough deliveries in all industries during the run-up to Christmas.
“What we want to do is to make sure we have the preparations necessary to get through to Christmas and beyond, not just in the supply of our petrol stations but all parts of our supply chain,” he added.
There are concerns from some care organisations that vulnerable service users could be left without their usual help if the crisis does not ease.
Emma Voglemann who lives in south Cambridgeshire said that, without the 24-hour help from her team of five carers, her “situation is life-threatening”.
Care assistant Jenny Irons, who works in Clacton, Essex, with end-of-life patients, said it was frustrating to see people top up their cars, then get out four or five jerry cans to fill up those too.
Education union NASUWT called for teachers to be prioritised to safeguard children's schooling in some rural areas.
Meanwhile, police forces and garage owners have warned about chaotic scenes and even violence at some forecourts.
Paul Cheema, who runs an independent filling station in Coventry, said his staff had experienced abuse last weekend as they tried to enforce a £15 limit on fuel sales.
Footage taken in Welling, south east London, showed a man brandish what appeared to be a knife during an altercation in a forecourt queue.
Police in Derbyshire said two men were being sought for threatening an officer after drivers queued for several hours outside a petrol station without realising it was closed.
And the owner of a petrol station in Bunny, Nottinghamshire, that has seen queues as long as two miles, said one customer spent just £1.60 to keep their car tank full to the brim.
By George Bowden
