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Panic buying, or shortage

Passion, instruction, buying, care, maintenance and more, any form of vehicle discussion is welcome here

Have you topped up with fuel in the last few days when you wouldn't have done normally?

Yes
7
8%
No
76
92%
 
Total votes: 83

DrFfybes
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Panic buying, or shortage

#445991

Postby DrFfybes » September 28th, 2021, 4:26 pm

Given deliveries are at the same rate as last week, fuel stations typically run a 24 hour reserve of stock, sales were 3x normal after the news on Friday, and people weren't driving 3x as much as usual, have you contributed to the shortage or just thought "hey, I'll fill up on Thursday like normal"?

Urbandreamer
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446012

Postby Urbandreamer » September 28th, 2021, 5:01 pm

On holiday at the moment so using the car more than normal.

Hence going on holiday has added to the situation. I did set off with a full tank, however that fuel was bought some 10 days ago.

I would like to know at what point all these "panic buyers" are going to stop because they can't get any more fuel into their vehicles?

redsturgeon
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446014

Postby redsturgeon » September 28th, 2021, 5:06 pm

I do about 1000 miles a week at the moment for business. I fill up when the fuel light comes on normally and a tank will last about 4 or 5 days. Actually when I filled up on Thursday night I still had half a tank left but I filled up because I knew I would need to travel over 500 miles on Saturday and Sunday and I heard the news of possible shortages. Lucky I did otherwise I would not have been able to make my journeys.

So although I answered your poll saying I hadn't done anything differently, perhaps I had.

John

pje16
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446015

Postby pje16 » September 28th, 2021, 5:07 pm

NO I'm not a moron :lol:
Nor do I have a job where I drive a lot

robbelg
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446017

Postby robbelg » September 28th, 2021, 5:10 pm

I went to a large out of town Tesco today, the queue for the petrol station was just 8 cars.

DrFfybes
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446027

Postby DrFfybes » September 28th, 2021, 5:30 pm

robbelg wrote:I went to a large out of town Tesco today, the queue for the petrol station was just 8 cars.


It does seem to be dying down.

FWIW the Avensis light came on last Monday so that was already full, and on Friday morning MrsF took me to Stokesay Castle in the Carina, and the light came on. We stuck £40[1] of SUL in on the A49 in a quiet station about 11:30 am. 4 hours later it was somewhat busier.

My take on this is that UK average sales are 100,000L/day roughly. Stations tend to have a day left when they restock, so a tripling of buying on Friday and Sat has caused the problem, then we're just on catch up. However as the system had little slack to start with (hence the scaremongering) the catching up isn't happening as quick as it could have. With 30M vehicles on the road, assuming a conservative average half full and 60L tanks, that's 900,000L of panic buying capacity.

Paul

[1] Given the outrageous price I would have just put a tenner or so in to get us home where I still have half a 15L jerrycan of E5 I got for the lawnmower etc., but someone got distracted and overshot.

chas49
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446036

Postby chas49 » September 28th, 2021, 5:51 pm

DrFfybes wrote:
robbelg wrote:My take on this is that UK average sales are 100,000L/day roughly. Stations tend to have a day left when they restock, so a tripling of buying on Friday and Sat has caused the problem, then we're just on catch up. However as the system had little slack to start with (hence the scaremongering) the catching up isn't happening as quick as it could have. With 30M vehicles on the road, assuming a conservative average half full and 60L tanks, that's 900,000L of panic buying capacity.


According to the Petrol Retailers Association, total petrol and diesel sales for 2020 amounted to :


https://www.ukpra.co.uk/en/about/facts-and-figures
So that's a total of 38,009 billion litres.

Assuming a constant rate of sales throughout the year (probably wrong but it'll do for now) that works out at approx 104 billion litres per day.

That would suggest that panic buying of 900k litres ought to have been a mere blip.. The figures must be a bit more complicated I suppose.

Alaric
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446044

Postby Alaric » September 28th, 2021, 6:01 pm

DrFfybes wrote: Stations tend to have a day left when they restock, so a tripling of buying on Friday and Sat has caused the problem, then we're just on catch up. However as the system had little slack to start with (hence the scaremongering) the catching up isn't happening as quick as it could have. With 30M vehicles on the road, assuming a conservative average half full and 60L tanks, that's 900,000L of panic buying capacity.


How many days of stock would a petrol station normally have? I suppose that's as long as a piece of string as stations have similar designs and thus maximum capacity, but dissimilar sales volumes. If on average petrol stations were only half full, that could empty them more rapidly.

RiskyPete
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446051

Postby RiskyPete » September 28th, 2021, 6:20 pm

I still haven't topped up and I'm very much running on fumes now...

On the other end of the spectrum people are also doing this: https://www.mylondon.news/news/uk-world ... t-21694540

pje16
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446056

Postby pje16 » September 28th, 2021, 6:26 pm

RiskyPete wrote:On the other end of the spectrum people are also doing this: https://www.mylondon.news/news/uk-world ... t-21694540

I thought most of those in the queues were thick
but that's a whole new level of dumb :roll:

daveh
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446059

Postby daveh » September 28th, 2021, 6:32 pm

I filled up early - I'm planning a long journey at the weekend and we need a full car for that (but not my car). The person whose car needs topping up couldn't get diesel or petrol locally on Monday, so I said I'd check out the situation at my usual Tesco when I went shopping Monday evening. I did it by filling up my car. No queues, some 95 octane unleaded unavailable on one set of pumps, but a delivery was happening as I was there. No problems with diesel or 98 Octane petrol. Messed up my spreadsheet though as I've been filling up at 1/4 tank and seeing how much longer I'm getting between fills now that I'm mainly commuting to work by bike (3000 miles so far this year). Time between fills pre covid was 9.6 days, post covid and moving to commuting by bike that's gone to 23.2 days, but the panic buying means it was only 15 days since I last filled up.

swill453
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446066

Postby swill453 » September 28th, 2021, 6:44 pm

daveh wrote:but my panic buying means it was only 15 days since I last filled up.

Fixed that for you :-)

Scott.

RiskyPete
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446071

Postby RiskyPete » September 28th, 2021, 6:50 pm

pje16 wrote:
RiskyPete wrote:On the other end of the spectrum people are also doing this: https://www.mylondon.news/news/uk-world ... t-21694540

I thought most of those in the queues were thick
but that's a whole new level of dumb :roll:


It gets worse: https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... wrong-fuel

AsleepInYorkshire
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446075

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » September 28th, 2021, 6:54 pm

Why wasn't there an option to see if we were at the sperm bank :lol:

AiY

DrFfybes
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446076

Postby DrFfybes » September 28th, 2021, 7:06 pm



O level maths, Q1:

Assuming..
Stupid people fill with the wrong fuel.
Stupid people panic buy.

If a tripling in fuel sales tallies with a 5 fold increase in stupid people buying fuel, what percentage of the general population are stupid?

Paul

pje16
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446078

Postby pje16 » September 28th, 2021, 7:12 pm

DrFfybes wrote:O level maths, Q1:

Assuming..
Stupid people fill with the wrong fuel.
Stupid people panic buy.

If a tripling in fuel sales tallies with a 5 fold increase in stupid people buying fuel, what percentage of the general population are stupid?

Paul

Far far more than you would think
and the really worrying thing is they can breed :lol:

MyNameIsUrl
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446089

Postby MyNameIsUrl » September 28th, 2021, 7:57 pm

DrFfybes wrote:O level maths, Q1:

Assuming..
Stupid people fill with the wrong fuel.
Stupid people panic buy.

If a tripling in fuel sales tallies with a 5 fold increase in stupid people buying fuel, what percentage of the general population are stupid?

Paul

I make that 50%

So this 'natural experiment' gives an indication of the difference in behaviour of those above and below the median

marronier
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446167

Postby marronier » September 29th, 2021, 8:00 am

Given the gridlock in the area around a filling station , what are the odds that the shortage of fuel is exacerbated by the inability of the tankers to get near to the station to make normal deliveries ?

pje16
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446169

Postby pje16 » September 29th, 2021, 8:09 am

Good point..
You would like to think that vehicles would move out of the way
but then again think about who is in the queue :roll:

dealtn
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Re: Panic buying, or shortage

#446190

Postby dealtn » September 29th, 2021, 10:06 am

pje16 wrote:Good point..
You would like to think that vehicles would move out of the way
but then again think about who is in the queue :roll:


Aren't deliveries generally being made to petrol stations that are empty of fuel. I'm not aware of much queuing at empty petrol stations so I doubt this is a significant issue.


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