A lot of garages in my neck of the woods are struggling to stay open to supply the panic buyers because of the Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion protests at various oil depots in the Country at the moment.
Anyway, it's reassuring that although some of the 24/7 garages are telling Joe Public they have no fuel, they keep a reserve stock for the emergency services.
I stopped off at the Esso garage the other evening, which is just off the A34 at Abingdon, for a bottle of diet coke and a sandwich. All the pumps had signs on them saying they were closed.
An ambulance pulls in to the forecourt next to one of the pumps. The driver walks into the shop and the bloke behind the counter tells her to pull up next to pump number 8 and he'll activate it for her.
However, some muppet who was also in the shop buying stuff started kicking off and had a temper tantrum. He couldn't work out why the ambulance was allowed to refuel. Idiot.
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The Govt insists fuel companies bunker 10% of their fuel (percentage may vary it was 10% when I worked on loans to various refineries and distributors).
The bunker stock was to be for Govt use in national emergencies.
There was much “paper” trading and I did wonder if the crunch came there would be a pile of paper instead of barrels of diesel.
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So as soon as the main news outlets start repeating this... bingo! we're back to where we were with the HGV issue... let's see if we are told that there isn't 'really' a shortage like then.
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