A Total Energies forecourt operator who claims to have lost tens of thousands of pounds following last month’s collapse of the Prax Group’s Lincolnshire oil refinery wants to set up an action group with other affected site owners to protect their businesses’ future.
Harriet Cookson, who runs her family’s forecourt business Lawford Service Station in Manningtree, on the Essex/Suffolk border, plans to create a Whatsapp group in a bid, she says, to give herself and fellow operators power in numbers.
The filling station, which has been in her family for 89 years and which she runs with her father Tony, only became a Total Energies outlet in March, after 15 years with Jet. She says that she feels “cheated” by being locked into a five-year deal with Harvest Energy BLA Ltd, despite having been without fuel deliveries from the business for over two weeks.
She says that joining forces will enable affected retailers to share information, as well as potentially to put forward a combined legal case to withdraw from their fuel contracts.
Cookson says she feels isolated because of the decision to switch fuel suppliers. “Having recently become a Total Energies site I don’t know other retailers with the brand. But I am hoping we could all come together to get out of our contracts and re-sign elsewhere,” she says.
The last deliveries Cookson received from the Lindsey Oil Refinery in North Killingholme, North Lincolnshire, was on June 27 for petrol and June 30 for diesel.
Like other Total Energies and Harvest Energy forecourt operators – there are 125 dealer sites alongside 33 company-owned dealer operated affected sites – she has been sourcing more expensive temporary supplies. But this has been fragmented and earlier this week she was left with no diesel for more than 24 hours.
With out of stocks and the direct impact on shop sales, alongside having to pay between £1,500 to £2,500 more for each 35,000 litre tanker load over the period, she says the business is out of pocket by £26,000 so far.
“It is a logistical nightmare, and with two or three tankers per week it is costing us a lot of money straight off our bottom line,” says Cookson. “And the worse thing is we don’t know how much longer this is going to go on for.”
On Monday she told Forecourt Trader: “We have a lot of van drivers who come in on a Monday in the morning and having no diesel since 6pm on Sunday, has meant that we have lost out on selling them a sandwich, a Costa and vapes.
“It is so stressful and is on my mind all of the time, even when I haven’t been phoning around for the best fuel prices. It has already been two weeks and every day is costing us money. We are in quite a good financial position, but this is just throwing away money. We are absorbing the cost as we need to stay competitive with local garages,” she says.
Fellow Total Energies forecourt operator Tom Dant, managing director of three sites in Lincolnshire, says that he too had been thinking of setting up a support group for affected petrol retailers. “It is a great idea as we are all in limbo,” says Dant, who is taking a £7,000 a week hit from the situation.
He started legal action last week to free Gill Marsh Forecourts from its long-term fuel contracts, after hearing that more than 100 tanker drivers linked to the refinery were being made redundant. He expects to receive a reply to his demands next week.
Teneo Financial Advisory, appointed by the High Court on June 30 as joint administrators for State Oil Limited the owner of Prax Group and its refinery, says it is urgently assessing “the position of the company and the wholesale operations”.
A key priority, it says, is ”to establish the prospect for subsidiaries that remain outside of the insolvency process”, including retail operations under the Harvest Energy, Total Energies and Breeze brands in the UK.
Joint administrator Clare Boardman says: “We appreciate that this is a very difficult and uncertain time for the employees and everyone involved”.
She adds: “We will be considering all options for the group, including the prospect of a sale for the group’s upstream business and retail operations in the UK and Europe, all of which remain outside of insolvency.”
Meanwhile, the PRA is offering affected dealers free legal advice as part of Harvest Energy’s group subscription to the association.
“The dealers are automatic members and might not realise this,” says PRA chief executive Gordon Balmer.
- Harriet Cookson can be contacted at accounts@lawfordservicestation.co.uk
