BP closes some petrol stations in Britain amid HGV driver shortage

Some petrol stations in Britain have been forced to close after the ongoing shortage of HGV drivers there left forecourts without supplies.

BP said on Thursday that up to 100 of its forecourts were short of at least one grade of fuel, with several forced to close entirely because of a lack of deliveries.

Esso said a handful of its petrol stations operated alongside Tesco Express stores were affected, while some of the supermarket chain's own-branded sites were also suffering outages.

Queues formed at some petrol stations in London and Kent on Friday as motorists rushed to fill up.

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Although Downing Street claimed there was no shortage of fuel, the developments will add to pressure on ministers already facing calls to take action to ease acute labour and supply-chain shortages linked to Brexit and the pandemic – with businesses calling for a visa scheme to help meet demand for more workers on farms, in factories and in road haulage firms.

Rod McKenzie, of the UK Road Haulage Association trade body, accused ministers of "government by inertia", allowing the situation to get gradually worse in recent months.

He said a very short-term measure would be to allow drivers on to the shortage occupation list and “seasonal visas” for foreign drivers.

A BP spokesperson apologised for any inconvenience, adding: “We are experiencing fuel supply issues at some of our retail sites in the UK and unfortunately have, therefore, seen a handful of sites temporarily close due to a lack of both unleaded and diesel grades.”

No need for concern

Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said the prime minister acknowledged there were issues across several industries, and that the government was working closely with business leaders over the course of this week to resolve the problems.

But he said there was no need for concern. “It’s important to restate that there’s no shortage of fuel, so people should continue to buy it as usual. [For] fuel, as in food, we have a very resilient and robust supply chain. So, as I say, people should continue to shop for fuel as usual.”

While Downing Street has said there was no reason for people to panic-buy petrol, opposition parties castigated ministers for, they said, failing to get a grip of the situation.

Meetings between the London government and food industry executives were expected to take place on Friday, with company bosses hoping for action on driver shortages.

Details of the disruption to petrol supplies emerged after a meeting between the government and executives from several companies convened to brief ministers about the severity of Britain's supply chain crisis, including BP, McDonald's and Amazon.

It is understood that BP’s head of UK retail, Hanna Hofer, told ministers it was important for the government to understand the urgency of the situation, which she described as “bad, very bad”, in comments first reported by ITV News.

She said the oil firm had “two-thirds of normal forecourt stock levels required for smooth operations” and the level was “declining rapidly”.

Staff shortages

BP's petrol delivery problems relate to shortages of staff at Hoyer, its transport contractor, which is struggling to find staff to take fuel tankers from refineries and depots to the company's network of 1,200 filling stations across the UK. About 400 drivers at Hoyer are understood to operate on the BP contract, with a handful of shortages enough to cause disruption to supplies.

Tesco is believed to be experiencing limited temporary shortages in a small number of areas across its 500 filling stations. “We have good availability of fuel, with deliveries arriving at our petrol filling stations across the UK every day,” a spokesperson said. However, a number of service stations operated by Esso with a Tesco Express store on site have also been affected, out of a network of about 200.

A spokesperson for Esso said: “We are working closely with all parties in our distribution network to optimise supplies and minimise any inconvenience to customers. We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience.” – Guardian