Graeme Wearden 

UK fuel suppliers expect crisis to ease soon, as petrol prices rise and disruption continues – as it happened

Fuel industry and government renew calls for people not to panic-buy, as RAC reports petrol prices have risen
  
  

A BP petrol station that has run out of fuel is seen in south London, Britain, September 27, 2021.
A BP petrol station that has run out of fuel is seen in south London, Britain, September 27, 2021. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Boris Johnson puts army on standby amid fuel supply crisis

And finally....Boris Johnson has ordered the army to remain on standby to help fuel reach petrol stations hit by panic buying, as Keir Starmer and businesses called on him to get a grip on the shortages rippling across the economy.

No 10 said army drivers would be ready to help deliver petrol and diesel on a short-term basis, but stopped short of an immediate deployment, even though some essential workers have not been able to carry out their jobs without fuel.

The decision was taken at a meeting of cabinet ministers on Monday, as the industry said consumer panic – rather than real shortages – was the main driver of the problems, and predicted that it would ease within days.

People continued to queue at fuel stations in spite of government warnings that drivers trying to top up were making the situation worse.

Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, said it was right for the government to take “sensible, precautionary steps”.

“The UK continues to have strong supplies of fuel. However, we are aware of supply chain issues at fuel station forecourts and are taking steps to ease these as a matter of priority,.

“If required, the deployment of military personnel will provide the supply chain with additional capacity as a temporary measure to help ease pressures caused by spikes in localised demand for fuel.”

The government also authorised an extension to licences for fuel tankers, automatically renewing them without refresher training.

Here’s the full story:

Goodnight! GW

What the papers say....

More front pages....

Tomorrow’s Guardian splashes on Olaf Scholz’s warning that the end to freedom of movement helped caused the UK fuel crisis:

The Daily Telegraph says critical workers would be given exclusive access to certain petrol stations to ease the fuel crisis under an emergency government plan.

The national emergency plan for fuel grants key workers “priority access” to pumps and caps the amount drivers can spend on fuel.

This issue also makes the front of The Times:

The i’s front page flags plans to train military tanker drivers in case they are needed to help with the fuel crisis:

The Yorkshire Post focuses on today’s calls for motorists to stop panic buying:

While the Daily Mail leads on a different transport story - failings on the UK’s smart motorways.

Updated

The Metro reports that chaos at the pumps gave public transport a boost, with more people taking to trains, buses and the London underground:

Here come tomorrow’s front pages...

Key workers have spoken about the impact the situation was having on them and their work.

Rosie, a private carer from rural Norfolk, has already had to stop seeing some clients she visits owing to her nearly empty tank.

“I have been unable to get fuel, I have about a quarter of a tank left,” she said.

“I’ve had to prioritise clients to whom I live closest, and those most vulnerable. Those with family members nearby, I’ve told them I’m probably not going to be able to see them. I think I can get through to Wednesday, then I’m completely stuck.”

She said the fuel shortage was potentially worse for those living in rural areas where there is no public transport worth mentioning.

“My nearest petrol station is miles away, so I have to use fuel to go hunting for more fuel. This situation has a big impact on people here. Care agencies are not prepared to cater for some of the remote areas I service.”

It’s also been a dramatic day in the gas markets, where prices continue to soar - putting more pressure on businesses and ultimately consumers.

UK and Dutch natural gas prices closed at new record highs, extending their recent surge:

And in America, natural gas futures soared 11% to a seven-year high on Monday as record global gas prices kept demand for U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports strong.

“Spectacular prices around the world are feeding into the sentiment here,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York, adding:

“gas as a commodity is getting repriced....now that we’ve hit these price heights, it will be easy to do it again.”

The fuel crisis threatens major disruption to UK essential services and industry, the Financial Times writes tonight, following calls for key workers to get priority access to petrol and diesel.

Here’s a flavour:

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the British Medical Association’s ruling council, said healthcare workers needed access to fuel “whether this is to get to hospitals, practices and other healthcare settings, or for ambulances to reach people in urgent need of care”.

He added that “as pumps run dry there is a real risk that NHS staff won’t be able to do their jobs . . . healthcare and essential workers must therefore be given priority access to fuel”.

Christina McAnea, general secretary of Unison, the UK’s largest public sector union, called for the government to use “emergency powers to designate fuel stations for the sole use of key workers” including medical staff, teachers and police.

David Brown, chair of National Courier and Despatch Association, a trade body, said delivery companies were turning down jobs and telling workers to stay at home because of a lack of certainty around fuel supplies. “It has been difficult,” he added. “It has been frustrating for people who earn a living from driving.”

Liam Griffin, chief executive of Addison Lee, which runs a fleet of 4,000 cars in central London for courier and taxi services, said it was facing increasing “challenges”.

More here: UK fuel crisis threatens to hit essential services and industry

Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff has written about the uncertainty and unpredictability created by the fuel crisis, as the UK heads towards a “jittery, anxious winter”:

On Saturday, a friend who spends most weekends trekking halfway across the country to check up on her increasingly frail parents spent an anxious morning scouring empty garages for petrol. She can’t have been alone.

The strains of a weekend’s stockpiling are starting to show: some teachers can’t fill up to get to school, nurses are reduced to cadging lifts to hospital, and care workers who rely on their cars to reach vulnerable people in isolated areas are struggling. And then there are the purely human dilemmas. Imagine being heavily pregnant, bag all packed for the labour ward, and the fuel light is flashing.

The longer this goes on – and emergency measures such as calling up army reservists can’t produce results overnight – the more gaps may emerge in things once taken for granted. Appointments will be cancelled, deliveries delayed, services suddenly unavailable. We have started to shift from being a “just in time” society, freewheeling through life blithely assuming things will always be there, to a “just in case” one, wondering nervously what we might run out of next. (It will probably be something most of us never even realised mattered, similar to the carbon dioxide shortage that rattled ministers this month.)

Here’s the full piece:

Full story: End to freedom of movement behind UK fuel crisis, says Merkel’s likely successor

The centre-left politician in pole position to replace Angela Merkel as German chancellor has pinpointed the decision to end freedom of movement with Europe after Brexit as the reason for Britain’s petrol crisis.

Olaf Scholz, who is seeking to form a coalition government after the SPD emerged as the biggest party in Germany’s federal elections, said he hoped Boris Johnson would be able to deal with the consequences of the UK’s exit from the EU.

“The free movement of labour is part of the European Union, and we worked very hard to convince the British not to leave the union,” he said.

“Now they decided different, and I hope that they will manage the problems coming from that, because I think it is constantly an important idea for all of us to make it happen that there will be good relations between the EU and the UK, but this is a problem to be solved.”

Evening summary

Time to recap...

The UK fuel industry has insisted that the panic buying crisis that has hit forecourts across the country should ease soon.

After several days of chaos at the pump, refiners and distributors predicted that demand will return to normal

The group, including Shell, BP and Esso, said:

There is plenty of fuel at UK refineries and terminals, and as an industry we are working closely with the government to help ensure fuel is available to be delivered to stations across the country.

“As many cars are now holding more fuel than usual, we expect that demand will return to its normal levels in the coming days, easing pressures on fuel station forecourts.

We would encourage everyone to buy fuel as they usually would. “We remain enormously grateful to all forecourt staff and HGV drivers for working tirelessly to maintain supplies during this time.

Environment secretary George Eustice also urged people to buy petrol as normal (although many have found they couldn’t buy fuel at all!), saying that there is no shortage of fuel in the UK.

However, distributors are struggling to get enough fuel to petrol stations -- there have again been many scenes of forecourts closed, or lengthy queues where petrol is on offer, leading to transport disruption through the day.

One petrol station worker said it had been an ‘unprecedented’ time.

Yasser Ahmed, 37, who runs West Drayton service station with his father, said he had “not had time to breathe” as people clamoured to fill up their tanks.

He told the PA news agency.

“We had a delivery Friday morning.

Driving in that’s when it started hitting me there was a lot of talk on the radio (about) panic-buying.

“When I got into work it was considerably busy but not too bad. By the afternoon, when my dad left, I was non-stop, didn’t have time to breathe.

“If there was a spillage outside, it’s a single-man operation, I was having to hold everyone, clear the spillage then rush back in. I couldn’t even sit down.”

The Petrol Retailers Association, a trade body, said the majority of service stations were without petrol and diesel on Monday, with members reporting between 50% and 90% of independent sites had been drained dry by weekend panic buying.

PRA chairman Brian Madderson said the situation was quite acute, and could take several days to fix:

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it’ll be less of a problem by the end of this week.

The government has so far resisted deploying the army to drive fuel tankers, and appears to be pinning its hopes on the crisis easing once more cars have been filled up.

Eustice said there were ‘no plans at the moment’ to put soldiers behind the wheel, although MoD staff have been helping to speed up training sessions.

Senior ministers have agreed to ask the Army to prepare for getting hundreds of soldiers driving fuel tankers, in case such a dramatic step is needed.

The government also suspended competition laws last night, to help oil companies work together to address the crisis.

But the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said the government should deploy the army’s logistical skills as soon as possible, to help reassure people there wasn’t a fuel crisis.

The British Medical Association (BMA) has called for essential workers such as ambulance drivers and healthcare staff to get priority access to fuel.

Public services in Surrey are considering declaring a major incident in response to the fuel supply crisis.

Schools are hoping that they won’t need to return to online lessons.

The political row over the panic buying continued, with the Road Haulage Association rejecting claims that it had leaked BP’s warning of supply problems:

Motorists are also being hit in the pocket, with fuel prices rising over the weekend....and further rises possible, as crude oil has hit a three-year high today (Brent crude traded as high as $79.90 per barrel)

The RAC also reported an increase in motorists running out of fuel over the weekend....

...while hundreds of panicking motorists filled their tanks with the wrong kind of fuel over the weekend, adding to disruption.

The AA said it had attended 250 misfuelling incidents over the weekend compared with an average of 20-25 on an average day.

The UK was also warned that Brexit had caused its current supply chain problems.

Olaf Scholz, the Social Democratic Party’s candidate for German chancellor, said:

The free movement of labor is part of the European Union,.

We worked very hard to convince the British not to leave the union. Now they decided different and I hope they will manage the problems coming from that.”

Edwin Atema, head of research and enforcement at the Federation of Dutch Trade Unions, also warned that the plan to give 5,000 temporary visas may not work.

He gave Radio 4 listeners an early morning jolt by declaring:

The EU workers we speak to will not go to the UK for a short-term visa to help the UK out of the shit they created themselves.

Updated

The inflationary pressures building in the UK has made a rise in interest rates next year more likely, the central bank chief has warned.

Against a backdrop of rising fuel prices and the prospect of higher transport costs pushing up the price of food in the run-up to Christmas, the Bank of England’s governor said there were signs that inflation could be sustained and the central bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) may need to increase borrowing costs in 2022. More here

Headteachers are hoping that the fuel shortages won’t force a return to online lessons.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said schools were hoping that staff and pupils will still be able to reach the classroom:

“Schools and colleges are operating under a great deal of pressure at the moment because of the situation with Covid infections.

“The last thing they need is the added pressure of fuel shortages with the potential for this to mean that staff, pupils and suppliers are unable to get to school.

“We very much hope the situation is resolved rapidly before it causes disruption.

“There is the option for remote education, which schools and colleges have shown themselves to be very adept at providing through the pandemic, but this is very much a last resort and they will be hoping it doesn’t come to that.”

Full story: Petrol station chaos worsened by motorists filling up with wrong fuel

The chaos on Great Britain’s petrol station forecourts has been worsened by hundreds of panicking motorists filling their tanks with the wrong kind of fuel, breakdown services have reported.

With queues snaking hundreds of metres from some filling stations – and tension building between motorists in places, more than five times as many people as usual in the UK have mistakenly put diesel in their petrol engine or vice versa.

Misfuelling can cause significant damage to cars, and motorists are advised to not switch on the ignition at all once they realise their mistake – meaning such breakdowns potentially block the already crowded forecourts. Hapless drivers also need to have their tanks fully drained while the contaminated fuel has to be jettisoned.

The AA said it had attended 250 such incidents over the weekend compared with an average of 20-25 on an average day. The breakdown company has a fleet of specialist “fuel assist” vans to deal with this type of incident. Should the driver not immediately notice their mistake, large amounts of smoke can come from the exhaust, and the engine is apt to misfire and cut out. Using petrol in a diesel car is the more serious mistake in terms of possible damage.

Here’s the argument for the crisis easing in the coming days....

Disruption around the country

Many local newspapers are doing a great job tracking petrol stations in their area.

In the Oxford region, for example, the Mail reckons around 12 were out of fuel by mid-afternoon (including some in Witney and Abingdon). My own local petrol station, in Headington, is currently out of fuel too (unlike on Saturday when queues were causing congestion).

Bedfordshire Live reports that a number of petrol stations were closed across its county today.

In Newcastle, the Chronicle reports that several stations are out of fuel, while the filling station at Sainsbury’s in Washington is closed to the general public and only emergency services are allowed to get fuel.

There are also shortages in Bolton today, as the Manchester Evening News’s Nick Jackson reports:

While in Stockport, supermarkets with fuel also had long queues of motorists desperate to fill up:

Full story: UK fuel prices hit eight-year high as petrol stations run dry

Pump prices for fuel in the UK have reached their highest level in eight years as petrol stations run dry amid panic buying, with a further jump expected as wholesale energy costs continue to surge.

Figures from the RAC show the average price of a litre of petrol rose from 135.87p on Friday to 136.59p on Sunday as motorists scrambled to fill up their vehicles, with the cost of petrol hitting the highest level since September 2013.

As queues continued to form at forecourts on Monday after a chaotic weekend, the motoring group warned prices could rise further this autumn as the global oil price soars to the highest level in three years.

It said some retailers had also taken advantage of panic-buying by ramping up prices, but reiterated there was no shortage of fuel at refineries and called on motorists only to buy what they immediately need.

Here’s the full story:

PA: Public services in Surrey consider declaring a major incident

Public services in Surrey are considering declaring a major incident in response to the fuel supply crisis, according to PA Media this evening.

Surrey County Council’s Conservative leader Tim Oliver told the PA news agency that the option will be considered by the local resilience forum, which includes the local NHS and police, on Monday evening.

He said:

“We have been experiencing the same problems as everyone else so we are deciding whether or not to declare a major incident which would give the forum powers to prioritise key workers.

“We have got access to fuel supplies which we can designate for priority workers so social workers can be given a card which enables them to access those supplies.

“We have also got our own electric vehicles so our role would be to coordinate that activity so those people who need to travel can.”

Kwarteng: Crucially important statement from the fuel industry

Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng says the fuel industry’s prediction that the petrol crisis could soon be over is “crucially important”.

It is an encouraging development. And it could help ease the panic buying. If people are confident that the situation is improving, they’re less likely to buy fuel before they need it.

That could reverse the vicious circle created by the initial queues, when shortages encouraged motorists to top up before things deteriorated further....

Motorists are still facing long queues to reach some petrol pumps today, judging by these pictures from PA:

Our political correspondent Aubrey Allegretti has the latest on the UK government’s plans:

Demand hasn’t returned to normal yet, though, with many reports of delays and congestion this afternoon caused by petrol station queues:

UK fuel suppliers expect demand to return to normal soon.

UK fuel suppliers say they expect demand to return ‘in the coming days’, after the spate of panic buying left many stations low on petrol and diesel, or dry.

In a joint statement, the group of leading fuel companies, including Shell, BP and Esso, say that the pressures on forecourts should ease, now that more cars than usual have been filled up.

They encourage people to buy fuel “as they usually would”, echoing the message from George Eustice this morning.

The group say:

There is plenty of fuel at UK refineries and terminals, and as an industry we are working closely with the government to help ensure fuel is available to be delivered to stations across the country.

“As many cars are now holding more fuel than usual, we expect that demand will return to its normal levels in the coming days, easing pressures on fuel station forecourts.

We would encourage everyone to buy fuel as they usually would. “We remain enormously grateful to all forecourt staff and HGV drivers for working tirelessly to maintain supplies during this time.

Stockpiling fuel is dangerous, and not public-spirited, but there are signs that some people may not have been heeding these warnings (typo corrected, thank you readers!).

The Evening Standard says:

Halfords recorded a 17-fold rise in the number of jerry cans sold over the weekend compared with the same period a week earlier.

The containers, used by motorists to stockpile fuel, was the fourth most common search term on the retailer’s website.

Jerry cans aren’t normally a top-selling item, though, so treat that percentage change cautiously...

Updated

Calls are growing for the government to prioritise fuel for key workers, after panic-buying left some essential workers struggling to obtain fuel:

Haulage group says Grant Shapps is ‘ridiculous’ to blame it for petrol panic

The petrol crisis that has resulted in long queues of motorists at forecourts has been primarily blamed on panic-buying, but the government has also taken the opportunity to point the finger at an organisation that has long been a thorn in its side: the Road Haulage Association.

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said the panic was sparked after comments made by BP about dwindling stock levels at a Cabinet Office meeting were leaked by “one of the road haulage associations”.

And in case there was any ambiguity, sources briefed the Mail on Sunday that the RHA was “entirely responsible for this panic and chaos”.

The RHA says the allegation is false.

Rod McKenzie, the RHA’s policy and public affairs director, who was branded a “moaning remainer” by the unnamed source, did not attend the meeting and said he was only made aware of BP’s warning on its forecourt fuel stocks by media inquiries after the comments were reported on television.

McKenzie told the Guardian:

“It was already in the public domain. I said every time I was asked there is not a shortage of fuel. It’s just ridiculous, accusing me of causing people to panic-buy. It’s not fair.”

Elsewhere in the energy crisis, Shell Energy will take on 255,000 customers from Green, one of seven small energy suppliers that have collapsed in a wave of failures that have forced the energy regulator Ofgem to find new providers for 2 million customers.

Ofgem said former and current customers of Green would have any outstanding credit on their balance honoured under the agreement, with no interruption to supply predicted when Shell takes over on Monday.

Green was the sixth of seven energy suppliers to collapse since the beginning of August, after its chief executive, Peter McGirr, warned in the Guardian that the global rise in gas prices was going to result in a “tsunami” of failures.

In total, nine suppliers catering to nearly 2 million households between them have failed in 2021.

More here:

RAC: beware of petrol stations hiking prices

Motoring body the RAC says a ‘small number of retailers’ have hiked petrol prices during the surge in demand.

It also reports an increase in call outs from drivers who ran out of fuel over the weekend, as shortages and long queues at the pumps led to more motorists getting stranded.

RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams said the average price of unleaded rose by a penny per litre over the weekend, to 136.59p on Sunday.

That’s the highest since September 2013, with prices having already climbed to eight-year highs this summer (more details here).

And with Brent crude up 2% today and heading towards $80/barrel for the first time in three years, motorists could see higher prices on the forecourt soon.

Williams says:

When it comes to pump prices, it’s a pretty bleak picture for drivers. With the cost of oil rising and now near a three-year high, wholesale prices are being forced up which means retailers are paying more than they were just a few days ago for the same amount of fuel.

This has led to the price of a litre of unleaded already going up by a penny since Friday. We might yet see higher forecourt prices in the coming days, irrespective of the current supply problems.

We are also aware of a small number of retailers taking advantage of the current delivery situation by hiking prices, so we’d remind drivers to always compare the price they’re being asked to pay with the current UK averages which are 136.59p for petrol and 138.48p for diesel.”

The RAC also urges people not to stockpile fuel, as it makes the situation worse (as well as being dangerous).

Stock piling in containers only makes the situation worse for those who desperately need fuel as well as potentially causing unnecessary fire risks if not stored correctly. It’s also vitally important the emergency services and businesses that help to keep the UK moving can get access to fuel.

We have also seen an increase in our patrols attending drivers who have run out of fuel over the weekend.

Updated

The petrol shortages may have encouraged some drivers to consider a shift to electric cars.

Ian Plummer, commercial director at Auto Trader, says they saw a sharp pick-up in interest over the weekend:

“We are all familiar with the idea of range anxiety, but the events of the past few days mean we are entering the age of fuel anxiety. We have seen a massive surge in consumer engagement for electric cars on our marketplace over the weekend.

Not only did the number of advert views for new and used electric models increase a record 28% and 61% respectively versus the previous weekend, but we also saw a huge uplift in the number of people sending enquiries to retailers, with one sent every two minutes. This suggests that people aren’t simply flirting with the idea of electric but have been encouraged to actively pursue a purchase.

PA: Petrol station worker reports unprecedented demand

A petrol station worker says the demand for fuel has been “unprecedented” at his small local garage and that shop sales have “tanked” following a weekend of panic-buying.

Yasser Ahmed, 37, who runs West Drayton service station with his father, said he had “not had time to breathe” as people clamoured to fill up their tanks.

“It’s unprecedented,” he told the PA news agency.

“We had a delivery Friday morning.

Driving in that’s when it started hitting me there was a lot of talk on the radio (about) panic-buying.

“When I got into work it was considerably busy but not too bad. By the afternoon, when my dad left, I was non-stop, didn’t have time to breathe.

“If there was a spillage outside, it’s a single-man operation, I was having to hold everyone, clear the spillage then rush back in. I couldn’t even sit down.”

Ahmed said his four-pump station had gone through 30,000 litres of fuel - the amount it would usually sell in a whole week - in just two days.

“That’s completely not normal,” he said.

“Yesterday we didn’t open up, we lost a whole day yesterday, today dad is in, only because we have a lot of regular customers from the local community who are going to work and want to grab their coffee first in the morning.

“That’s the only reason we opened up. We’re not selling anything inside, our shop sales have tanked.

“People are saying on social media that petrol station owners are doing really well and making a lot of money - we’re not. We make our money from shop sales, and they’re gone.”

Ahmed said he had placed an order immediately on Friday afternoon but was still waiting on confirmation of another fuel delivery for Wednesday.

“We’re a family-run business, just myself and my dad, so we’re going to have to work however we can.

“It’s like in the pandemic, we just did what we needed to do to get by.

“Everyone is panic-buying through fear that it’s going to run out and, because of that, it actually has run out.”

Health workers should be given priority access to fuel in UK, says senior doctor

No 10 is facing calls to give ambulance drivers, healthcare staff and other essential workers priority access to fuel after panic buying caused shortages across the UK.

With ministers due to meet on Monday afternoon to discuss the growing crisis, the British Medical Association (BMA) called for emergency measures to let medical staff fill up, warning that as pumps run dry “there is a real risk that NHS staff won’t be able to do their jobs”.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the chair of council at the BMA, said:

“Emergency and essential workers rely on fuel both to travel to work and for their work itself – whether this is to get to hospitals, practices and other healthcare settings, or for ambulances to reach people in urgent need of care and GPs to visit very ill patients at home.

Here’s the full story:

Germany's Olaf Scholz: UK supply chain problems due to Brexit

Olaf Scholz, the frontrunner to replace Angela Merkel as the leader of Germany, has said Brexit has led to the UK’s shortage of HGV drivers.

Scholz, the Social Democratic Party’s candidate for chancellor, was asked about the UK’s lorry driver problems after the SPD won won the most votes in Sunday’s federal election.

Bloomberg explains:

With the U.K. in the throes of a fuel crisis due to a shortage of truck drivers, the man tipped to become chancellor was asked if Germany could help the country out.

The question was asked by a British reporter at a news conference with Olaf Scholz, who last night won the election by the slimmest of margins. It was met with laughter and the Social Democrat took it in his stride and in fluent English reminded the Brits that their troubles are also a consequence of Brexit.

“The free movement of labor is part of the European Union,” he answered. “We worked very hard to convince the British not to leave the union. Now they decided different and I hope they will manage the problems coming from that.”

Scholz added that low pay and poor conditions for drivers is also part of the problem:

“It might have something to do with the question of wages.

If you understand that being a trucker is really something that many people like to be and you find not enough, this has something to do with working conditions and this is something that has to be thought about.”

Updated

Royal Dutch Shell says it is refilling UK petrol stations as fast as it can, after the surge in demand hit supplies.

A Shell spokesperson said.

“We are working hard to ensure supplies for customers,”

“Since Friday we have been seeing a higher than normal demand across our network which is resulting in some sites running low on some grades. We are replenishing these as quickly as we are able to.”

AA: dramatic rise in misfuelling

The AA has reported a surge in motorists misfuelling their vehicles over the weekend -- as some motorists put the wrong kind of fuel into their tanks.

Edmund King, AA president, also predicts that the rush to the forecourts should calm down ‘in the coming days’, once more cars are full of fuel.

“For the vast majority of drivers there is no need to rush to the pumps, and we urge people to only fill up when essential. There is no need to top up ‘just in case’.

“Millions of drivers changed their refuelling habits this weekend, but once a tank is full it can’t be topped up. This short-term increase in demand should slow and allow forecourts time to restock. We anticipate things will return to normal within the coming days.

Drivers also need to be careful because this weekend we have seen a dramatic rise in misfuelling (putting in the wrong fuel) compared to last weekend. This in turn unnecessarily reduces the fuel available as the whole tank has to be drained before refilling with the correct fuel.

“AA Patrols are still on hand and able to service our members as usual, so we can keep drivers out on the road.”

Here’s an example of today’s queuing -- at a Tesco near Stanwell, Middlesex.

Some may be panic buying, or topping up their tanks just in case, but others will be trying to buy petrol as normal, as the government is recommending....

The petrol queues have been causing transport disruption again today.

This is from bus operator Nottingham City Transport:

There were also delays at a park and ride in Norwich:

Buses in Crawley also suffered disruption this morning:

It was a similar story in West London too:

Britain is ready to introduce further measures to help deliver fuel to petrol stations after a shortage of drivers strained supply chains, prime minister Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said (via Reuters).

A shortage of truck drivers in Britain has triggered panic buying of fuel in some English cities, with queues of cars snaking back from gas stations, many of which have run dry or simply closed.

The spokesperson said.

“What we are doing as a responsible government (is) taking the preparatory steps necessary should any further measures be needed,”

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan: Must deploy army ASAP

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has called on the government to deploy the army “as soon as possible” to alleviate the pressure on petrol stations, and reassure people there’s no need to panic buy fuel.

Speaking to Times Radio this morning, Khan said the situation in London was not good, with some petrol stations running out of fuel, and big queues at those which do have stocks.

It’s really important that the government finally gets a grip, he says. They should have been getting the army ready days ago.

One of the reason people are panic buying, when you speak to them, is they don’t believe the government when they say there’s no fuel shortage.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, Khan adds, and the way to reassure people is to have petrol stations full up with petrol again.

“But also, we’ve got to get the army in as soon as possible. The reality is the army has the logistics experience and the experience to come in as soon as possible.

Khan also says ministers should reserve some petrol stations for key workers - as happened in the 2000 petrol crisis (when protesters blockaded fuel refineries for several days in a push for lower fuel duty).

One of the things that government did then, was to make sure some petrol stations were reserved for those key workers that needed it.

You need in the short term, some form of making sure that those who really need the petrol are getting it, rather than those who, for understandable reasons, want to just fill up their tank just in case they may need it in the future.”

Khan also warns that the government must send a “positive” message to EU drivers to encourage them to return to the UK.

You don’t just, after months and months of frankly speaking, slagging off EU citizens, suddenly say we’ve got 5,000 visas, come to the UK. It doesn’t work like that.

The government’s got to send out a message in positive terms to those who may be EU qualified and may have returned to their country of origin, or may, you know, be thinking about coming here...and entice them to come here.

'No plans at the moment' to bring in army to drive fuel tankers

Environment Secretary George Eustice also says there are no plans at the moment to get soldiers to drive fuel tankers.

Speaking to broadcasters, Eustice says the government is using Ministry of Defence trainers to accelerate the training of HGV drivers, and clear the backlog of tests which have built up.

In terms of other things, we’ve no plans at the moment to bring in the army to actually do driving.

The UK always has a civil contingencies section within the army that’s always on standby should they be needed, Eustice explains, “but we don’t judge that’s necessary at the moment”.

One option to deploy the army, called “Operation Escalin”, was drawn up during the planning for a no-deal Brexit. It would mean hundreds of soldiers being drafted in to drive a reserve fleet of 80 tankers to speed up the shipment of fuel from refineries to forecourts.

As my colleague Aubrey Allegretti explains:

The Escalin and other proposals will be put to Boris Johnson on Monday afternoon, in a meeting where ministers are also expected to discuss more immediate solutions to try to influence people’s behaviour and put an end to the current levels of panic buying.

Ministers are exasperated because they think that the true magnitude of fuel shortages would have been tiny if the public were acting normally, and the HGV driver shortage would have only had a marginal effect, but media reports have prompted queues outside forecourts across the country. The PRA said demand at one service station had risen by 500% on Saturday compared with last week.

A source suggested that a high level of shortages will last at least another five days – and could go on even longer if people’s behaviour does not change. They called the situation a “catch-22”, because by making any interventions, the government could end up exacerbating the problem: “The more we seem to react to this, the more we end up driving it. But if we don’t react, it just carries on. We’re almost generating our own crisis.”

Updated

Environment secretary George Eustice: Buy petrol as normal

The UK government is again urging people not to panic buy fuel, and to fill up their vehicles as normal.

UK environment secretary George Eustice has told broadcasters the UK has “plenty of petrol”, and that problems are being caused by consumers buying fuel they didn’t need.

Eustice says:

“The most important thing is that people just buy petrol as they normally would. There isn’t a shortage.

There have been some shortages of HGV drivers getting petrol to forecourts but actually that’s quite limited in the petrol sector.

The cause of these current problems is that panic-buying episode, and the most important thing is for people to start buying petrol as they normally would.

Eustice adds that those with a ‘tendency to be anxious’ have been fueling their cars:

Obviously those people who have a tendency to be anxious at these times, many of them will have filled their cars up.

And he compares the current situation to the panic buying of food early in the pandemic, which led to temporary shortages in shops:

There does come a time when things settle down, people get used to it and return to life as normal again. The quicker people do that the better.

There is no shortage of petrol. Plenty of petrol in both our refineries and in storage.

The only reason we don’t have petrol on forecourts is that people are buying petrol when they don’t need it, Eustice reiterates.

Of course, if you rely on your car for work, school runs, or caring responsibilities, then the sight of long queues and closed petrol stations will create a certain sense of anxiety....

Also, the crisis began after it emerged that BP had told the government that it plans to restrict deliveries of petrol and diesel to its network of service stations to ensure continuity of supply (ITV got the story here).

That was due to the UK’s shortages of HGV drivers, making it hard to get petrol to the forecasts, leading to some petrol stations in the UK having to close (a problem that then snowballed over the last few days).

Updated

British discount supermarket Aldi UK says it expects to have good product availability this Christmas, despite the supply chain crisis.

CEO Giles Hurley has told reporters that Aldi’s focus on fewer products will help keep its shelves stocked:

“I’d always come back to the fact we have a more refined range than our competitors, we simply have less products to control, to supervise, to manage and I think that just gives us that unique competitive advantage”.

Aldi has also announced plans to create 2,000 jobs and open another 100 stores across the UK as part of a £1.3bn plan to take a larger share of the British grocery market.

Here’s the story:

Oil hits near three-year high

In the wider energy market, oil has hit its highest level in almost three years amid tight supplies and rising demand.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, has risen almost 1.5% to $79.20 per barrel, the highest since October 2018 -- and up from $62/barrel five weeks ago.

Demand has been rising as economies emerge from pandemic lockdowns, while recent hurricanes have disrupted supplies from the Gulf of Mexico.

The shortage of natural gas, where prices have surged, could also lift demand from oil-fired power stations too.

Goldman Sachs analysts predict Brent could hit $90 per barrel by the end of the year, writing:

“While we have long held a bullish oil view, the current global supply-demand deficit is larger than we expected, with the recovery in global demand from the Delta impact even faster than our above-consensus forecast and with global supply remaining short of our below consensus forecasts.”

Unions are warning that granting temporary visas will not fix the economy’s long-term problems.

GMB union general secretary Gary Smith told Today that the driver shortages was a consequence of long-term erosion of wages and working conditions.

“I am not convinced that just issuing loads of visas is going to address the problem. We have got a short-term crisis, we are going to have to come together and find solutions for that.

“But there has to be an honest conversation about a country that’s mired in low pay and insecure work. We are paying for years of driving down pay and conditions.”

Other groups have also identified poor working conditions as a factor pushing drivers out of the industry, and deterring people from joining (the cost of getting trained is another one).

Victoria Short, chief executive of Randstad UK Recruitment, told Sky News that conditions at roadside services in the UK are “far worse” than in mainland Europe.

When we’re trying to attract talent from mainland Europe to come here and work, and the pay and conditions that they have there are better, we need to consider how we can looks at things like that for them as well.”

It was a pressing issue even before the current crisis, with the current average age of a UK HGV driver around 55.

EU drivers won't help UK out of Brexit mess, union says

The UK’s offer of 5,000 temporary visas to overseas lorry drivers to help fix the supply chain crisis and rescue Christmas has received a frosty reception from one union official.

Edwin Atema, head of research and enforcement at the Federation of Dutch Trade Unions, which represents drivers across the EU and Europe, told the Today Programme bluntly that:

The EU workers we speak to will not go to the UK for a short-term visa to help the UK out of the shit they created themselves.

Atema also explained that offering higher salaries would only solve one part of the problem.

He says the industry was already ‘sick’ long before the pandemic and Brexit, and that drivers across Europe and beyond had already lost trust in it.

It has been “plagued by exploitation”, Atema explains, with “irresponsible multinationals” driving down pay such that drivers eventually left the industry.

Drivers were attracted to drive in Europe with the promise of heaven, and ended up with hell, he continues, citing poor working conditions across the industry.

There’s a whole range of issues behind the headline issue of pay and visas, in the UK and across Western Europe, he insists, even basic conditions such as access to toilet facilities.

Q: So there could be an opportunity for the UK to offer a really compelling offer?

Atema warns that this would be a dead end in the short-term.

He argues a Marshall Plan is needed to drag standards up across the whole industry across Europe, rather than allowing companies to compete on working conditions... before warning not to expect EU drivers to rush to fix the UK’s self-inflicted problems...

Drivers are also warning that three months visas won’t be attractive enough:

And over the weekend, Marco Digioia, the head of the European Road Haulers Association which represents more than 200,000 trucking companies across the continent, told the Observer that “much more would be needed” than a temporary relaxation of immigration rules.

“There is a driver shortage across Europe. I am not sure how many would want to go to the UK.”

The Petrol Retailers Association also warns that it could take several days for petrol stations to return to normality.

PRA chairman Brian Madderson says the industry will be ‘watching and waiting from Wednesday onwards’ to see if the volume of traffic coming onto forecourts eases.

Hopefully a lot of cars are now topped up with fuel, he says, although there could also be more traffic on the roads than normal as some people are avoiding public transport due to the pandemic.

Q: So will we be back to normal by the end of this week?

Madderson replies:

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it’ll be less of a problem by the end of this week.

Petrol Retailers Association: Monday morning is going to start pretty dry.

The Petrol Retailers Association says the panic buying of petrol has been focused in cities, particularly in England, where some petrol stations will have started today ‘pretty dry’.

Speaking to Sky News this morning, PRA chairman Brian Madderson said that there is some good news - there’s no panic buying in Northern Ireland where fuel supplies are normal, and it’s a similar picture in parts of rural Scotland and rural Wales

It looks as though panic buying has been focused in main urban centres, particularly in England, Madderson says. There, some of its large members, who have a portfolio of sites, reported 50% of stations were dry as of yesterday, with some up to 90% yesterday.

“So you can see it is quite acute.

The PRA represents independent fuel retailers with the mail fuel brands, such as BP and Shell (and doesn’t represent supermarkets, for example).

Certainly, for our members, Monday morning is going to start pretty dry for them.”

Madderson adds that one member reported 500% more volume sales on Saturday than the previous Saturday, due to panic buying.

Pharmacists who do home visits are among the healthcare staff who are experiencing problems as a result of fuel shortages caused by the supply chain crisis.

“At the moment I have about a quarter tank of petrol left and it is a concern,” said Claude Pereira, a pharmacist in London who carries out essential blood testing for people who are at risk of blood clotting.

While ambulance fleets will, in theory, have stocks of fuel, Pereira pointed out that the crisis was having an impact on workers such as pharmacists upon whom some housebound members of the public rely.

Pereira explained:

“We rely on our cars to get us to those places, and if we can’t use them, then it’s an issue. I went out at 5.30 [on Sunday morning] and went around a number of petrol stations in an attempt to get fuel, but I couldn’t. I’m crossing my fingers that things will calm down in the coming days.”

This is from Joe Armitage, political analyst at Global Counsel:

Industry: Not a national shortage of fuel

The UK fuel industry say they want to reassure consumers that there’s no national shortage of fuel.

In a joint statement after meeting Kwasi Kwarteng yesterday, a group including Shell, ExxonMobil, Wincanton and the UK Petroleum Industry Association said:

“We are in regular contact with Government ministers and policy officials and it was reassuring to meet with the Business Secretary again on Sunday evening and discuss further action.

“We will continue to work closely in partnership over this period with local and national Government and want to reassure the public that the issues that have arisen are due to temporary spikes in customer demand, not a national shortage of fuel.”

Updated

Introduction: UK suspends competition law to get fuel to petrol stations

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.

Britain’s petrol crisis has deepened, forcing ministers to suspend competition law to help oil companies to target petrol stations running dry, after days of panic buying.

After a meeting with oil companies and retailers on Sunday, business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng agreed to temporarily exempt the industry from the Competition Act 1998.

This rare move announced last night will allow companies across the oil industry to work together to keep petrol stations topped up, sharing information and optimising supply without risking breaching competition rules.

Called the Downstream Oil Protocol, it should help fuel producers, suppliers, hauliers and retailers to prioritise the delivery of fuel to the parts of the country and strategic locations that are most in need.

Brian Madderson of the Petrol Retailers Association has said it will help, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it:

...possibly allows the suppliers to put fuel into their competitors’ sites ... and if so, the increased flexibility that that would give the supplying industry would be very welcome”.

But, Madderson added it isn’t a game-changer that will fix the crisis on its own.

Kwarteng said the move is part of “long-standing contingency plans” drawn up in case of a serious disruption.

“While there has always been and continues to be plenty of fuel at refineries and terminals, we are aware that there have been some issues with supply chains. This is why we will enact the Downstream Oil Protocol to ensure industry can share vital information and work together more effectively to ensure disruption is minimised.

“We thank HGV drivers and all forecourt staff for their tireless work during this period.”

It follows days of panic buying at some petrol stations, after the UK’s shortage of lorry drives caused problems delivering fuel to the forecourt -- a situation that worsened as more worried drivers headed to fill up.

Last night, BP reported that nearly a third of its British petrol stations had run out of the two main grades of fuel on Sunday, after several days of heightened demand saw long snakes of cars outside stations.

The government is now considering whether to deploy the army to get fuel moving from refineries to motorists.

Hundreds of soldiers could be scrambled to deliver fuel to petrol stations running dry across the country due to panic buying and a shortage of drivers under an emergency plan expected to be considered by Boris Johnson on Monday.

The prime minister will gather senior members of the cabinet to scrutinise “Operation Escalin”, as our political correspondent Aubrey Allegretti explains:

In a bid to prevent the crisis from deepening further, ministers including the business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, transport secretary Grant Shapps and home secretary Priti Patel gathered for a midday meeting on Sunday to discuss options – including Operation Escalin.

Conceived years ago during the planning for a no-deal Brexit, it would mean hundreds of soldiers being drafted in to drive a reserve fleet of 80 tankers. It is understood that it would take up to three weeks to fully implement, because some of those mobilised may already be on other deployments and others could be reservists. Escalin was touted as an option last week, but government sources downplayed the chance of its activation

Also coming up today

Global investors will be digesting Germany’s federal general election. The centre-left SPD and their chancellor candidate, Olaf Scholz, have won 25.7% of the vote, giving them a slim lead over their centre-right CDU rivals -- but both parties are claiming the right to build the next government.

The close result means Angela Merkel could remain as chancellor for a little while longer, as party leaders try to hammer out a coalition.

And Labour are to pledge to scrap UK business rates and undertake the “biggest overhaul of business taxation in a generation,”.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will tell the Labour Party conference that the current system punishes entrepreneurs and business investment. Business groups have welcomed the move.

We’ll also get new healthchecks on the global economy, with Germany’s central bank issuing its monthly report and American factories reporting their latest order figures.

The agenda

  • 11am BST: Germany’s Bundesbank monthly report
  • 12.45pm BST: European central Bank president Christine Lagarde testifies at European Parliament
  • 1.30pm BST: US durable goods orders for August.
 

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