A BP dealer has decided to stop selling fuel today because he says he is being consistently let down by aborted petrol and diesel deliveries.
Over the past six weeks, Prem Uthayakumaran says stockouts at his 24-hour Crossroads Service Station in Mansfield have meant he has had to shut his pumps for a total of 144 hours, the equivalent of six days of lost income.
He says that the delivery issues have arisen since he switched from Essar to BP nine months ago, and these have intensified over the past two months. He relies on regular deliveries because he has smaller tanks at the 1.8mlpa site – he has three tanks totalling 48,000 litres of storage.
Uthayakumaran will lock his pumps at 5pm today and says his fuel will remain unavailable until at least the middle of next week.
The Nottinghamshire site is one of four run by Uthayakumaran and his only one with BP branding.
This week, Uthayakumaran took the unusual step of increasing his fuel prices by 3p to 5p a litre at the site to slow sales and keep his pumps open for longer.
He has also been turning away fuel card and bunkering customers so that he delayed running out of fuel, which he says has been proving “a very difficult situation” with some fleet customers frustrated as they are only able to purchase fuel at BP stations.
But despite these actions, and multiple requests to the oil giant to sort the situation, he expects to run out of fuel this afternoon. He is planning on closing the pumps for the weekend at 5pm today, despite rush hour normally being one of the busiest periods of the day.
Yesterday, Uthayakumaran served formal notice to suspend his fuel supply agreement with the oil giant. An order he had placed for fuel last Friday (July 24), for a Monday delivery, had still not arrived. It was rescheduled to arrive this evening which he says was the final straw that led him to cancel that and further deliveries.
“There was no point in waiting for a fuel delivery which had been cancelled four days already. It will mean not selling fuel for the weekend, which I realise is damaging for the site’s reputation, but I have no choice and it will be better in the long-term. I need to suspend operations until deliveries are sorted.”
On Thursday, the BP national account manager had a meeting with Uthayakumaran. ”BP are finally engaging with me after meeting today, promising they will investigate thoroughly. But it remains to be seen whether this will result in any improvements,” says Uthayakumaran.
“I went to BP because I thought it would bring customers to my site. Instead it is killing my business. I’m having to think the unthinkable of closing the pumps temporarily while I try to sort this out.
“I never had this problem with Essar, and it feels like because I am a small site I’m given a second class service.”
So far, Uthayakumaran, managing director of his family business Prehybrid, has kept the convenience store on the forecourt open when the pumps are dry. However, nighttime sales have become so quiet that from Monday he is thinking of closing the shop completely overnight.
He says it is impossible to operate a site with so much uncertainty around when tankers will arrive from haulier Oxalis Logistics. “Oxalis blames BP allocations, and BP blames Oxalis. I just want the situation resolved,” he says.
“Cancelled deliveries have been blamed on terminal allocations, driver shortages, and other operational reasons, which appear inconsistent with the wider market conditions,” he adds.
“BP is fully aware that these failures have caused considerable financial strain, operational disruption, and considerable stress to our family, business and employees. We will have to see what Monday brings.”
BP told Forecourt Trader that it is aware of the concerns raised by Prehybrid and its Crossroads Service Station, and says that it has been in direct contact with the dealer on several occasions.
It adds: ”We always work hard to minimise any disruption for customers. As this concerns an individual commercial relationship, we will not comment on specific correspondence, but we remain focused on working directly with our customers for any concerns they raise.”
Oxalis Logistics has been approached for a comment.
