Petrol station operator Prem Uthayakumaran, who led a campaign to persuade Harvest Energy to release dealers from their fuel supply contracts which were thwarted by the demise of the Prax refinery, is claiming a victory.
On Friday (February 20), he was released from his contract for two of his four sites to be supplied by the business, after eight months of uncertainty of having to buy fuel elsewhere since Prax went into administration last June.
Uthayakumaran had rallied a group of seven other operators to take joint legal action against Harvest, which is responsible for both the Harvest Energy and Total Energies brands in the UK. Until the operators were released from their contracts, other fuel suppliers were reluctant to sign then on long-term contracts.
He told Forecourt Trader that he is aware of just one other operator in that group being given the go ahead to find another long-term fuel supplier. That operator is The Rondel Group, which has now set up its own distribution business to collect fuel direct from Kingsbury oil terminal.
Uthayakumaran was given an extended term of 45 days to remove the Total Energies branding from his forecourt in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire. Fortunately, his other Harvest-supplied site at Eastfield in North Yorkshire had not switched branding when Prax, the owner of the Lindsey oil refinery, collapsed.
He plans to switch his Broxbourne site to Texaco, which had stepped in with fuel supplies for the past six months as a short-term solution. And he hopes that the other petrol station owners who he has been taking legal action with, operating around 15 forecourts between them, will soon be given the freedom to sign long-term fuel contracts elsewhere.
“I think that all of us are getting released if not already. It will be just a matter of days,” he says.
“Other fuel suppliers will look at this as an opportunity and they will no longer see [Harvest dealers] as a risk. And so I don’t think waiting for a free of tie even matters,” he adds.
Fellow Total Energies dealer Ledbury Road Services, near Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, which was not part of the legal action taken by the group, was also released from its tie with Harvest earlier this month. Oliver Arnold, who owns the business with his partner Susannah Moffat, says that he has been given 45 days at the point of signing up a new supplier to take down the Total Energies branding.
Unlike Uthayakumaran, in January the couple paid off debt owed on fuel delivered and not paid for, having set up a payment plan with the debt collector appointed by the administrator.
Other operators, including Lawford Service Station in Manningtree in Essex, and three-site business Gill Marsh Forecourts are yet to hear if they would be released from their contracts.
Uthayakumaran says that he will still keep a WhatsApp group live for the dealers to continue to support one another through what he says remains a difficult situation.
But he is relieved that he is free to sign a long-term contract with an alternative supplier. “My missus says I seem a lot more relaxed since getting the news,” he says. “I think they took us hostage, showing us no regard whatsoever.
“The great victory for us is that we can rebrand and have extended time to do this if we need it, with no strings attached.
“We are prepared to pay for fuel sold, but they [the administrators running the Harvest business] need to get back to our solicitors and answer our questions about breach of contract.”
The administrator was contacted by Forecourt Trader to supply a comment.
