Fuel stations in Aberdeen have run out of petrol and diesel, as another introduced a £30 spending limit due to “unprecedented customer demand”.
Long queues of people waiting to refuel their vehicles have appeared at stations around the country in recent days amid concerns about shortages – although the UK’s transport secretary has described the situation as “manufactured”.
Among the affected sites are the Shell garages on Anderson Drive and Wellington Road and the Tesco Express Esso in Pittodrie, which have all put up signs saying they have no petrol or diesel at the entrance to their forecourts.
Further along King Street from the Esso, the Shell garage near Donmouth has brought in a £30 limit for people wanting to fill up – though HGV drivers and emergency service vehicles are not impacted.
It is the only Aberdeen location run by the EG Group, which has introduced the limit at all of its 567 sites across the UK.
In a statement, the company said: “Due to the current unprecedented customer demand for fuel and associated supply challenges we have taken the decision to introduce a limit of £30 per customer on all of our grades of fuel.
“This is a company decision to ensure all our customers have a fair chance to refuel and to enable our sites to carry on running smoothly.
We kindly ask everyone visiting our sites to treat our colleagues, supply chain partners and customers with respect during these very challenging times.”
‘There’s enough petrol in the country’
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the queues and closures at fuel stations were a “manufactured situation” created by the Road Haulage Association (RHA) leaking comments from BP bosses about supply concerns.
Speaking to Sky News’ Trevor Phillips On Sunday programme, Mr Shapps said: “We need to ensure that people are reassured now that this rather manufactured situation has been created, because there’s enough petrol in the country.”
Asked who manufactured the situation, he said: “There was a meeting which took place about 10 days ago, a private meeting in which one of the haulage associations decided to leak the details to media, and that has created, as we have seen, quite a large degree of concern as people naturally react to those things.”
He later told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show the briefings were “irresponsible”.
The Cabinet minister called for the public to be “sensible” and only fill up their cars when needed as there is “plenty of fuel” available.
Although Mr Shapps did not name the RHA in his broadcast round on Sunday, the Mail on Sunday quoted a Government source stating the Road Haulage Association was “entirely responsible for this panic and chaos”.
But Rod McKenzie, of the RHA, told the BBC: “This is absolute nonsense, I’m not the source of the leak.”
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