The Petrol Retailers Association has warned that messaging surrounding the Iranian conflict has the potential to create a “self-fulfilling prophesy” of petrol and diesel outages, as was seen during 2021’s tanker-driver shortage.
Gordon Balmer, the organisation’s executive director, hit out at “alarmist and irresponsible” comments circulating across the media over the weekend.
Edmund King, president of breakdown and insurance firm the AA, told The Times that drivers should “beware” of what he called “inevitable” price hikes. Howard Cox, founder of Fair Fuel UK, circulated comparable comments, advising motorists to “fill up as soon as possible”.
Balmer, who has been taking interviews on the radio on the subject, sees things rather differently, advising: “I have been urging motorists to fill up as normal so that we don’t get into the situation that we saw in 2021 when the media hyped up the tanker driver shortage and we had panic buying and sites running out of fuel,”
Mail Online, and local papers including the Liverpool Echo, Manchester Evening News, Birmingham Live, and Glasgow Times have chosen to feature photographs showing queues at Costco petrol stations, where traditionally rock-bottom prices see motorists wait in line for free pumps during normal trading.
Forecourt Trader has spoken to a number of retailers who say that while consumers are changing their behaviours, fuel remains free flowing at present. Pricewatch Group says trade can be described as “a constant flow, rather than having people queuing out onto the road”, with its five sites vending an average of 30% more fuel on Monday, although one community-based forecourt in its portfolio dispensed 18,000 litre yesterday compared to 11,000 on a normal start to the week, a 63% bump.
Guy White, managing director of the Laurels Service Station in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, says volumes at his site have risen 35% since the weekend, while Oliver Blake of Oasis Services near Hull, Yorkshire, experienced a 50% increase in trade on Monday.
Andy Cotton from Pearl Forecourts sounded a note of caution, commenting: “Wholesale has gone up today, whereas prices are static over the weekend normally. He added that: “We haven’t run out of fuel yet, but deliveries are starting to show cracks.”
Writing in Forecourt Trader, Jan Mikula from accounting firm EKW warned retailers that “UK consumers are rather prone to emptying the shelves (and storage tanks) at a moment’s notice when their preferred tabloid news supplier mentions that there’s going to be a shortage of anything”.
Mikula advises retailers to “gently raise their base-stock levels while they can”, as doing so will allow them to “ride out any short-tem supply issues that may be coming”.
The RAC’s Simon Williams, meanwhile, considers that “we really shouldn’t see a shock jump in prices at the pumps as wholesale fuel costs had only been rising gradually in recent weeks.”
