Petrol supply: Army will be delivering fuel in days – Kwarteng

BBC-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.

Another 150 Army personnel are ready to support them.

The government had put the Army on standby in case the fuel situation worsened, but on Wednesday morning Mr Kwarteng revealed that ministers had decided to deploy troops to drive tankers “in the next couple of days”.

He also revealed that a number of the government’s 80 reserve fuel tankers will take to the road this afternoon – with civilians driving the trucks from their depots in Cambridgeshire and West Yorkshire.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy acknowledged this would not make a huge difference but said it was a positive development.

On Tuesday, speaking for the first time since issues began, Prime Minister Boris Johnson also sought to reassure drivers about supplies, saying that people should be “confident” to go about their business.

He said he was not seeking to prioritise essential workers at pumps because things were “stabilising”.

Sir Keir Starmer used his first in-person conference speech as Labour leader on Wednesday to criticise the government’s handling of fuel supply issues.

Referring to the government’s flagship “levelling up” policy to lower regional inequalities, he said: “Level up, you can’t even fill up.”

He accused the government of ignoring the issues, blaming others and delivering “half-baked” solutions with “no plan in place”. Mr Starmer urged the PM to “either get a grip or get out of the way and let us step up to clear up this mess”.

James Spencer, managing director at fuel supplier Portland Fuel, said the UK was over the worst of the situation and sending in the Army would “generate more panic”.

“Under normal circumstances supply can easily meet demand,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. He added that now many people had filled up their tanks, there might be a “dip in demand”.

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.

The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) said there were “encouraging signs” the pressure was starting to ease at the pumps, with forecourts taking further fuel deliveries.

The PRA, which represents nearly 5,500 of the UK’s 8,000 stations, said 27% of sites had run out of fuel on Wednesday – compared with two-thirds being without on Sunday.

Brian Madderson, PRA chairman, told BBC News that while there were “less queues [and] panic buying” there was still “unusually heavy demand”. He said “one or two” petrol station groups were reporting fewer dry sites than on Tuesday.

It would take more than “a day or a few days” to fully replenish stocks at all UK forecourts, he said, but there was still “plenty to go round”.

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.

But the Times reported industry sources as saying disruption could “continue for weeks” because of the time it will take to restock petrol stations.

And 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”.

Meanwhile, car use in Britain this week fell to its lowest level for a working Monday since 12 July, suggesting some drivers have reduced the amount they are driving due to fuel supply issues.

The figures from the Department for Transport showed car traffic was at 91% of pre-pandemic levels on Monday, compared with 97% a week earlier.

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.

Mr Johnson 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 government was taking action to ensure there were enough deliveries in all industries during the run-up to Christmas, 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 has 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.