The Lemon Fool

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"?

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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Fixed that for you

Scott.

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

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

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

AiY

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

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

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

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

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 ?

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

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

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.