Fuel panic!

[dutchie01]

1 hour ago, First_Lexus said:

A friend was telling about a colleague who is a qualified HGV driver, not working in the industry currently. I trust the friend - this is true, rather than apocryphal.

His colleague now works in a big warehouse. He contacted eight big organisations who - supposedly - are desperate for drivers (not tankers). Most didn’t even reply…

It rather begs the question, are we short of 100k HGV drivers, or are we actually short of 100k cheap HGV drivers recruited from the poorer members of the EU? Answers on a postcard…

Exactly that is the bottom line. IF selfdriving trucks would be available now the hauliers would go for it immediately and sack the drivers they now have on their payroll. They are merely seen as a cost and a nusance. Maybe the situation has to become worse before it gets better?

[Initial P]

Only a problem in the South now apparently.

[The-Acre]

2 hours ago, Initial P said:

Only a problem in the South now apparently.

Which is where I live. One neighbour spent 3.5 hours trying to get fuel yesterday. It's worse than ever, and clearly won't be over soon. Keeping me fit though as I'm walking everywhere, including walking past vast queues for fuel at the one and only fuel station open.

[true blue]

Hi I think it is now improving in our area ,we got caught in a cleft stick ,my son  has been looking for a replacement car for a couple of weeks ,we found one last weekend ,a nice little Jazz which I went with him to check out ,problems ? non except the garage did not sell fuel ,the car had the low fuel light on ,the sales guy said you will be O K for 20 miles so we did a 25 mile test drive then bought the car ! Now we are not chancing our luck any further so the car has stood ready to go for a few days while I cycle round (on an E bike I built during lockdown ) with a can 😘 to get 5 litres so he can get it home ,success today plus £35 in the tank  you never know the next problem when dealing with idiots

Dave

[J Henderson]

Speaking of down south...

 

A garage in London was charging nearly £3 a litre for super unleaded...and still sold out. 😳 

[Mr Vlad]

WTF. That's bloody outrageous and that fuel station needs boycotting. 

[Initial P]

In the current situation you prob wouldn't even notice until its too late.

[gdh300]

I'm so happy; after a two wasted tours of 10 miles each in the week, this evening I happened to walk past a local station (closed all day) that suddenly had all the fuels and no queues. I ran home - no mean feat for me! - and grabbed the keys to the wife's Toyota that has been on the flashing light for four days, fuelled it, drove home, got my car (no longer giving a range estimate) and fuelled that. 

What a ridiculous situation, being happy about that...

[First_Lexus]

Interesting. The switch to E10 was a ‘major factor’ in the shortages as retailers were running down other stocks just as the panic buying hit…

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/07/exclusive-governments-switch-greener-fuel-major-factor-behind/

[jumbojake]

well, for sure, all petrol stations got all their tanks drained ! ..  and no doubt all sorts of crap pumped out the bottom and into peoples cars.. nice and clean now!

Starting to see some fuel arriving here in Kent, not everywhere yet, but definitely improving.. as more stations open, the queues are finally reducing

[rayaans]

32 minutes ago, jumbojake said:

well, for sure, all petrol stations got all their tanks drained ! ..  and no doubt all sorts of crap pumped out the bottom and into peoples cars.. nice and clean now!

Starting to see some fuel arriving here in Kent, not everywhere yet, but definitely improving.. as more stations open, the queues are finally reducing

That's not true. 

A good friend of mine has two petrol stations. They almost have 800l left in reserve before they close it down. 

You can understand why i had no issue getting fuel throughout this "panic"

[Boxbrownie]

2 hours ago, First_Lexus said:

Interesting. The switch to E10 was a ‘major factor’ in the shortages as retailers were running down other stocks just as the panic buying hit…

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/07/exclusive-governments-switch-greener-fuel-major-factor-behind/

Not sure that has much bearing on the issue at all, most well used petrol stations tend to get tankers deliveries at least once a week, there was no need to “run down” the tanks.

[flookyk]

Up around here Sainsbury's garage was closed on the first Saturday but the 3 local garages to myself had no queues at all (couple of cars at the pumps filling up) on the Saturday, Sunday and all through last week and this week.

Sainsbury's garage was open Saturday gone so must have received their fuel. ( I never buy supermarket fuel myself anyway)

I filled up at just under 1/4 tank left that first Saturday and will need to fill up again this weekend as still only doing half the mileage that used to as working 3 days a week at home and 2 in the office.

[Sundance]

No E5 to be seen.

Not fuelled up since before this fiasco.  Now down to a quarter (65'ish miles) so on my way to Sainsbury's I routed past 6 fuel outlets, all within a 5 mile radius.  Those that were open had very short queues BUT ... 2 were open for everything else but no E5 (1x Esso, 1x Shell), 2 had no fuel at all (1x BP, 1x Shell), and 2x (1x Esso, 1x Shell) only had diesel.

Hey-ho, better luck next week then. 🙄

[Malc]

absolutely no problem at all experienced now, here in my part of Kent

Sittingbourne, Sheppey, Gillingham thru' to Faversham and beyond ( hopefully )

Driven onto a vacant pump on each of 4 ? occasions now with both cars ......  giving us the ability to get out and about pretty much as normal .................

Hope other motorists here are having the same ok experience as we are .....  however driving round and about it is clear some of the many petrol stations are closed and / or out of a particular type .... seems to be diesel signs mainly where it's missing 

But we did get down to " fumes " stage almost  before we refilled having decided never to ever join a Q

Best wishes one and all ..  fingers xd this silly situation resolves soonest

Malc

[Mr Vlad]

Strange that different areas have their own isolated fuel problems. I've had no issues at all. My local tesco never ran out of fuel even through the sheite that's gone on the past fortnight. I've fuelled my truck every day to at motorway fuel stations and at stations in Denbighshire, Conway, and along the A55.

As stated it's the morons who like sheep follow other morons and fill their vehicles causing massive Q's. 

[J Henderson]

Never had an issue getting fuel either.

Some forecourts have been imposing limits (£35), but the only refinery in Scotland is literally 5mins away, so I'm yet to see a completely dry filling station. Just the odd pump nozzle covered up here and there.

 

[First_Lexus]

I’ve been from Berkshire into London (Putney) and back today. One filling station was closed outside Bracknell, but the other four or five we passed were open without any queues. Whether they had every grade I don’t know.

I haven’t had a problem here in West Berkshire for well over a week now, and neither have friends or family. 

[LenT]

52 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

Strange that different areas have their own isolated fuel problems. I've had no issues at all. My local tesco never ran out of fuel even through the sheite that's gone on the past fortnight. I've fuelled my truck every day to at motorway fuel stations and at stations in Denbighshire, Conway, and along the A55.

As stated it's the morons who like sheep follow other morons and fill their vehicles causing massive Q's. 

Spot on, Vladimir.

it’s hardly a statistically valid survey, but I too have not had any problems finding petrol or diesel on the relatively few occasions that I’ve gone for my regular fills.   Neither have I encountered empty shelves on my occasional forays to the many supermarkets that ring our village.

But of course they don’t make good news items.  A few days ago on the Radio Four Today programme, one of the crew was interviewing the Manager of a fuel station (possibly BP) and got really excited when she said that at that precise moment they were almost out of fuel.  “So you’re having trouble getting supplies!” he suggested. “Oh no!” she said.  “In fact we’ve had more deliveries than usual.  It’s just that people are putting morel in!”

In a later interview a motor trade association rep explained that whereas the normal spend is around £25 a fill, it has now rocketed to over £80.  As I heard someone else point out, it’s not ‘panic buying’ when the media and the twitterrarty. are claiming national shortages.  Going out to stock up is a rational response.

The panic part is when you buy far more than you usually do despite not actually using more than you usually do.

Being caught out by unpredicted increases in demand is one of the drawbacks of the otherwise very efficient Just In Time supply system.

[Spacewagon52]

Here in East Kent still queues in our town. Fuel is available in Thanet however. I really thought it would have died down by now, apparently not!

[First_Lexus]

12 minutes ago, LenT said:

Neither have I encountered empty shelves on my occasional forays to the many supermarkets that ring our village.

^^ Agree. I’ve had no issues and the supermarkets I’ve been to have been stocked as normal despite what the media may say.

Let’s think about the media coverage on availability of turkey for Christmas. Supermarkets have driven prices and quality of all meat products down over 20-30 years. Suppliers have responded by - amongst other things - the use of (mainly) cheap Eastern European labour. Supply chains have become longer and more complicated. However, what isn’t being reported is that local butchers or farm shops with short supply chains are seeing business boom. Prices may be higher but so is animal welfare and wages. Localism is good. We should be celebrating this power shift.

Care Home staff wages over the past 10 years have dropped - in real terms - by almost 20%. It’s become a minimum wage job, fuelled by that same cheap labour supply, and it’s a difficult job at that. With the cheap labour supply cut off, wages will rise and young people may again see caring as a viable career. Again, that HAS to be good long term.

Wages are rising faster than at any point for 25 years. As a country we will adjust and become a higher wage / higher skill economy. Careers like butchery, caring, HGV driving et al should become much more attractive without the exploitation - and let’s not kid ourselves, that’s what it is - of poorer economic migrants. 

Yes, there is a period of adjustment right now. But stick with it. The future is looking brighter than many of us realise right now.

[Initial P]

2 hours ago, J Henderson said:

Never had an issue getting fuel either.

Some forecourts have been imposing limits (£35), but the only refinery in Scotland is literally 5mins away, so I'm yet to see a completely dry filling station. Just the odd pump nozzle covered up here and there.

 

Yeah https://www.tiktok.com/@gaz_anderson_w222/video/7013216130831551749

😄

[First_Lexus]

Are there any areas still having fuel availability issues? I keep hearing about London, but my trip to Putney on Friday didn’t show any real problems.

I went to buy fuel at my local filling station this morning (outskirts of Reading) and it was fully stocked as it has been pretty much throughout. I was the only customer…

[wharfhouse]

37 minutes ago, First_Lexus said:

Are there any areas still having fuel availability issues? I keep hearing about London, but my trip to Putney on Friday didn’t show any real problems.

I went to buy fuel at my local filling station this morning (outskirts of Reading) and it was fully stocked as it has been pretty much throughout. I was the only customer…

I personally haven't had too many problems in Berkshire either (live west of Reading) and have filled up three times since the "panic" took hold. Strange thing is I usually use my local Sainsbury’s which to it's credit has only increased the price by 1p a litre (to £1.32) since this all happened and has not to my knowledge run out of E10 (though has been out of diesel and E5 on occasions) and often not had big queues (relative to other places). However just south west of that Sainsbury's fuel station the price per litre shot up £1.46 at Shell and Esso stations, there were huge queues and they were often drained dry each day...! I suspect the supermarkets actually have more robust (wield a lot of clout) supply chains for fuel and the brand name fuel stations are often independents selling brand name fuel who don't have the clout of the supermarkets in getting restocked. 

[PCM]

All fine now.

Christmas Turkey's next.