U.K. Fuel Crisis Has at Least a Week to Run as Army Steps In

(Bloomberg) --

The U.K.’s fuel crisis will still take at least a week to rectify, the main retailers’ group said, as the army set to work on delivering gasoline and diesel to filling stations.

It will take 7 to 10 days for inventories held by members of the Petrol Retailers Association to get back to normal levels, Gordon Balmer, the organization’s executive director, told Sky News. There has been an improvement across the country although London’s greater population density means supplies around the city remain a pinch point, he said.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman, Max Blain, said lines of motorists at gasoline stations was because of an excess of demand, not supply. He acknowledged there were still “challenges” for consumers accessing fuel in London and the southeast of England. “There is not now, nor has there ever been, reductions in fuel,” Blain said.

The PRA represents independent filing stations across the U.K., equating to 65% of the 8,380 total. The fuel crisis is now in its 12th day and has gone on for longer than some in the industry had anticipated. 

(Adds comments from Johnson’s spokesman in third paragraph)

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