Home » The UK is dry: skyrocketing prices, queues and tensions at the petrol pumps

The UK is dry: skyrocketing prices, queues and tensions at the petrol pumps

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Scenes from a “state of war” are taking place in the United Kingdom, in recent days grappling with a fuel crisis with very worrying contours. At 90% of petrol stations, petrol is already out, while the average price per liter of fuel has increased from 1.3587 pounds on Friday to 1.3659 on Sunday – the highest figure in the last 8 years.

Mileage lines lined up outside the petrol stations, where motorists waited all night to fill up their petrol cans. According to the BBC’s owner of a pump, millions of Britons are facing a veritable “fuel massacre”. The rush for supplies has generated not a few tensions in the population, which not infrequently have resulted in episodes of real violence. Professor Danny Altmann of the presitigious Imperial College London, reported one a few days ago:

The owner of the family-run independent fuel chain “Oil 4 Wales” said that in the past 24 hours, South Wales petrol stations have delivered 100,000 liters of petrol, compared to 20-30,000 liters sold normally.

For now, the Conservative government has decided not to employ military tanker drivers to help deliver fuel, but has nevertheless ordered that some personnel remain on standby, ready to intervene if necessary: ​​”If necessary, the deployment of military personnel will provide the supply chain with additional capacity as a temporary measure to help alleviate the pressures caused by spikes in localized fuel demand, ”UK Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said in a statement.

London stops the crisis

Boris Johnson is at the center of the crossfire coming from his political opponents, trade associations and employees of so-called essential services, which the shortage at pumps is putting a strain on. Representing the health sector, the British Medical Association is lobbying to at least safeguard the work of doctors. For the latter, the British government is considering creating a preferential access lane for fuel, to allow them to continue to supervise hospitals and vaccination hubs.

Some individual initiatives are taking shape, as in the case of Surrey: The local County Council is considering unilaterally adopting measures to support the mobility of doctors, invoking the need to “cope with a serious crisis”.

Meanwhile Johnson has ordered that 150 military tanker drivers be trained to learn how to refuel petrol at the pumps: probably eighty will be those who, in the next few days, will take the field to face the crisis. In addition, the obligation for truck drivers to complete a series of refresher courses to maintain their driving license will be temporarily suspended.

Shell & co .: vain reassurances

From the spokespersons of the major companies – Shell, ExxonMobil and Greenergy – come messages of reassurance: for them, the lack of gasoline is due to a “temporary surge in the demand for fuel, and not a crisis of availability on a national scale”. From the oil giants there have also been criticisms of the national media, guilty, according to them, of having fueled the collective paranoia that has pushed many citizens to gas stations.

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Fuel and hauliers: the double crisis of mobility

Fuel shortages are intertwined with another major cause of discomfort for UK road haulage. For months now, there have been no truck drivers on the island, key players in the criculation of goods on both sides of the Channel.

Petrol pumps are also among the most affected businesses. Last week, oil company BP said it would have to “temporarily” close a handful of gas stations due to a shortage of truckers. It is estimated that the missing drivers are over 100 thousand; the figure far exceeds the trend of other European countries, where the crisis has manifested itself but to a lesser extent. The primacy is, needless to say, a direct consequence of Brexit: after London’s exit from Europe, many foreign hauliers have decided to abandon British roads, harassed by excess bureaucracy and salary rescheduling.

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