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- An acute fuel shortage has caused widespread panic for drivers in the UK.
- Footage shows mile-long queues and customers bottling petrol out of anger and desperation.
- Insider rounded up key scenes of the chaos happening across the country.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
Thousands of gas stations in the UK are facing an acute lack of fuel because of a post-Brexit shortage of truck drivers and panic-buying from consumers.
The supply of drivers has diminished as a result of changes to visa rules, causing tens of thousands of European drivers to leave Britain.
To make matters worse, COVID-19 lockdown restrictions spawned a backlog in training and tests for new lorry drivers to get their licenses, Insider’s Mia Jankowicz reported.
The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which acts for more than 5,000 of the UK’s 8,000 gas stations, on Sunday reported that two-thirds of its stations were out of fuel. The rest of them were “running out soon,” per Reuters.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is considering sending in the military to help deliver gas and ease the shortage. But that isn’t enough to solve the issue, the PRA warned, according to The Independent.
Amid the chaos, concerned drivers have resorted to peculiar and desperate panic-buying behavior, and in some cases, people have become violent at gas stations, per a video reported by The Independent.
Insider rounded up the latest scenes of desperation plaguing the country.
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Motorists have faced several calls to stop panic-buying petrol.
In a plea to the public, Johnson said: “I would just really urge everybody to just go about their business in the normal way and fill up in the normal way when you really need it and things will start to improve,” Independent reported.
Some people spent time filling up jerry cans with fuel.
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Motoring retailer Halfords said sales of jerry cans soared 1,656% last weekend due to panic buying, iNews reported.
Others are packing their cars with cans of fuel.
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The panic frenzy has caused several oil companies to ration petrol by imposing purchasing limits.
Photo by Hugh R Hastings/Getty Images
British retailer EG Group, which owns 400 service stations in Britain, has imposed a £30 limit on fuel purchases per customer due to the “unprecedented customer demand” in the UK, Reuters reported.
One man rode his horse past a queue of cars at a gas station, singing “I don’t need petrol because he runs on carrots.”
British motoring association AA said there has been a spike in the number of people putting the wrong type of fuel into their cars amid the rush.
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The AA had recently reported 250 such incidents compared with 20 to 25 on an average day, according to a Guardian report.
Motorway signs indicated to drivers which fuel was available at service stations.
REUTERS/Peter Cziborra
Big oil companies, including BP, Shell, and Esso have issued a joint statement saying they expected demand to return to normal levels “in the coming days.”
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“As many cars are now holding more fuel than usual, we expect that demand will return to its normal levels in the coming days, easing pressures on fuel station forecourts,” various oil companies said in a joint statement.
“We would encourage everyone to buy fuel as they usually would,” they added.
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