UK fuel crisis has at least a week to run as army steps in

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 seven 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.

The situation remains “challenging" in London and the southeast of England with 20% of filling stations still without gasoline or diesel, according to the PRA. But elsewhere in the country, there’s been “a marked improvement" since Sunday, with 86% of sites stocked with both fuels and 8% with neither.

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

Hoyer Petrolog U.K., whose trucks deliver fuel for BP Plc, said on Monday that a group of 60 military drivers have completed their training with the company to begin fuel deliveries. They will drive a mix of Hoyer tankers and the U.K. government’s emergency reserve tanker fleet and be based mainly around London and the southeast.

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.