British Fuel Pumps Run Dry on 'Panic Buying'

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British Fuel Pumps Run Dry on 'Panic Buying'

Story Filed: Sunday, September 10, 2000 5:40 PM EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Panic-buying by British consumers trying to beat sporadic blockades of oil depots by protesting truckers and farmers led to fuel pumps running dry in some regions on Sunday.

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The main impact was in northwest England, triggered by the blockade at Shell's refinery at Stanlow near Liverpool. The Anglo-Dutch oil giant said 100 to 120 of its 250 petrol stations in the region were dry or close to it.

BP Amoco faced similar difficulties.

``We have 140 sites in the northwest and 50 percent of these are either running very low stocks or are out. It is mainly affecting unleaded petrol and some diesel,'' a spokeswoman said.

``Across the country people are tempted to do some panic buying,'' she said. ``They are creating a situation that is not there.''

Texaco added that around 50 filling stations were affected by blockades at one refinery and three oil depots, including one in the Manchester area.

``We expect it to get worse from here over the next few days,'' a spokesman said.

The French-style action was in protest over British fuel prices, which are the highest in Europe.

Price levels jumped more than 40 percent from January 1999 to June 2000. Tax and duties make up about 75 percent of the price of a liter of premium unleaded petrol, currently about 0.85 pounds ($1.21), but recent crude oil price rises have squeezed drivers even further.

The Labor government, riding high in the polls and with a strong economy, refuses to cut the levies, saying the money is needed to improve health and other public services.

BUDGETS, NOT BLOCKADES

Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) Gordon Brown stuck to that line on Saturday, blaming members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for policies which have sent the price of crude oil soaring.

``I think people do understand that in Britain decisions are made in budgets. They are not made as a result of blockades,'' he told BBC radio.

``I think they also understand that when the oil price has gone from $10 a barrel to over $30 a barrel, that the action that must be taken now is by the oil producers in OPEC,'' he said in France after a meeting of European Union finance ministers.

OPEC responded to growing consumer pressure by agreeing on Sunday in Vienna to increase supplies by 800,000 barrels per day. Britain welcomed the move.

``I welcome it -- it's a start, anyway,'' John Reid, secretary of state for Scotland and speaking for the government on the petrol crisis, told BBC's World This Weekend.

Although limited, the British blockades were a rare phenomenon in a country which usually looks on impassively when workers in neighboring France take muscular direct action.

This time, the demonstrators were apparently inspired by the French model after farmers and truckers there, angered by much lower fuel prices than in Britain, choked traffic and fuel deliveries around the country in the past week.

The French began lifting their blockade on Saturday after a partial victory for their campaign.

But it remained to be seen if the British protesters, mostly self-employed men who own their fuel trucks, were ready to accept the high cost of a prolonged blockade.

Ray Holloway, director of the Petrol Retailers Association, said the fact that 30 filling stations in the northwest had run out of fuel -- out of 1,200 in the region -- did not mean Britain was running out of petrol.

``This situation is not critical, it's not likely to become critical,'' he told the BBC.

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), September 10, 2000


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