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Comment by humps | Hacker News Reader

As Brian Madderson, chairman of the Petrol Retailers Association, explained on BBC Breakfast this morning. This happened because a BP document was leaked to the media, which unsurprisingly got them excited about a possible shortage and led to the panic buying. Madderson also said the industry is used to dealing with about 2 million liters of fuel being required a week, but that's with typical weekly fill-ups. He suggested that's effectively doubled now as people fill their tanks to the brim, which you can't keep up with under any circumstances. So there's no shortage in the industry, only a shortage created by consumers changing their behaviour overnight.

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There is also a shortage of tanker delivery drivers which means that it is impossible to increase the number of deliveries which leads to outages which are then amplified via social media and news outlets (anything that gets clicks/engagements wins the race for Top Post/Ad Views/Headlines).

The biggest problem imo is that any time just about any government official in any country in any continent anywhere on the planet says trust us there is no need to panic people cast their minds back to the previous times they have heard that and (rather naturally) go 'Yeah, right!' and so think to themselves 'better safe than sorry'.

The UK gov has done a U-Turn and said that they will grant 5000 temporary work visas to EU HGV drivers .... that expire on Christmas Eve. Quelle surprise the take up rate has been rather low.

But over the long term, filling to the brim will not change the overall demand, it just changed the storage location. Once the system catches up to that fact, there shouldn't be a shortage anymore.

yes, it should be possible to catch up, although it will happen more slowly depending on how bad the driver shortage has become within the fuel industry.

There were "fun" stories about people expanding the fuel tank storage capacity in their cars some years ago when we had shortages.

So the trucker shortage is a false conclusion? Cause this article states that’s the definitive cause. It reads to me like an axe to grind with Brexit and trying to tie this crisis to that political football.

The trucker shortage has so far caused a minor shortage, but has the potential to cause worse shortages over time unless the trucker shortage is dealt with. The panic buying is making that all much worse and speeding up the timeline.

There's a general shortage of HGV drivers across Europe at the moment. The shortage didn't cause fuel pumps to run dry, though. It was the result of panic caused by the media after they got their hands on a document, with the initial news being that BP had closed 5 petrol stations. It escalated very quickly from there due to relentless media coverage. You could certainly argue the shortage of drivers made it much more difficult to cope with the panic once it was in full flow.

The lorry drivers that drive fuel lorries have different certification than general HGV drivers and there has never been a shortage of these lorry drivers.

In terms of the trucker shortage: the govt said today that the fuel driver shortage is small (150-300, tanker drivers make more than HGV drivers so probably true). BP said they were having no problems hiring but experiencing high levels of attrition (likely due to competitors offering pay increases)

BP met with the govt on Thursday, they said that supply levels were roughly at the level they had been since the start of the summer, low but manageable. Allegedly, they said they were only closing 10 or their 1,200 locations. They also said stock was low below normal levels.

Someone leaked this information to the media for the Thursday night news (it is very unlikely that it was anyone but the RHA). The person who did this left out several important details, in particular the fact that BP planned to close almost no locations. BP briefed the media later they were closing 20 (it was assumed initially that they were behind the leaks as the initial report was that the meeting was lobbying to lift visa rules, it seems not to have been the case). Other retailers briefed they had no issues with stock at all. Too late.

And the reason why people suspect the RHA is because they have been lobbying aggressively for most of this year to change visa rules. Visa rules were changed for them a few hours after this all kicked off (they also did poultry workers, this group have been working closely with RHA on lobbying)...this alone should suggest who is responsible.

RHA are, however, not backing down. This is not surprising as they are traditionally one of the most combative lobbying groups (the BMA is the other, SMMT has quietened down, NFU is combative but prefers to operate in the shadows when they are in govt). But, given that their lobbying has been successful, it is notable that they are continuing to push hard for further concessions (their line has modified ever so slightly though, they are talking about improving conditions...although they still sound quite angry that some HGV drivers are being offered £50k packages).

Unfortunately, lobbyists have worked out they have the media and the public in the palm of their hands. The outrage cycle in the UK has become rapid. After May folded to Nissan/SMMT (another lobbying group), lobbyists have realised there is a lot of money in briefing aggressively against the govt with a very pliant media (the RHA has been most aggressive by far, and has aligned itself with the big food lobbyists too). Brexit is inevitably part of this: 95% of journalists voted Remain, and there is a subset of the population who read a lot of news and talk about nothing but Brexit (if you are from the US, it is basically: what Trump did to Dems, what Obama did to Reps...it is non-stop).

EDIT: I made an error. The actual date of the govt meeting is not clear. Shapps may have said it was ten days ago, I am sure I read somewhere else it was on Thursday...I don't know. If it was ten days ago, that is obviously...unusual because the leak, most likely, wasn't accidental but premeditated. BP have completely washed their hands of it and claimed they weren't operating in the media on Friday morning...I don't quite believe that.

thank you for the additional information

The fuel supply problems actually caused by the shortage of truckers were such a minor issue that I doubt even the people affected by it would've noticed - a handful of petrol stations ran out in the entire country, and there's always the odd one that has some problem or another anyway. I think they'd been going on for a while too with nothing much changing. The widespread shortages that actually impact people are all due to the panic buying.

> which you can't keep up with under any circumstances

What? This is a stocks and flows problem. If everyone filled up to the brim every time, but followed the same pattern of use otherwise, the weekly fuel consumed is exactly the same (modulo some tiny loss of efficiency due to cars being marginally heavier).

Of course a nation of half-full cars suddenly filling them to the brim demands much more fuel during the (short) period of time over which they make that transition, but that shouldn't create an expectation of drastically increased future _consumption_ of fuel.

> the weekly fuel consumed is exactly the same

That assumes people fill up every week. Not everyone does, it really depends on the amount of driving they do and size of their tank.

> Of course a nation of half-full cars suddenly filling them to the brim demands much more fuel during the (short) period of time over which they make that transition, but that shouldn't create an expectation of drastically increased future _consumption_ of fuel.

Isn't that what's being stated? That there's no actual industry shortage, just a short term shortage and demand spiked unexpectedly for a day or two but to such a degree that the normal per-station reserves and delivery cycle was unable to cope? The expected result would be that the following days or even weeks (to a lesser degree) would see reduced demand, since it's less an increase or decrease in demand overall but really just a shift of some future demand to the present.

s/weekly/per unit time/g

But to the broader point, perhaps I misread. I fixated on the ‘cannot be kept up with’ bit which I read as implying a change in expected future consumption, but I see could also be read as a referring specifically to the demand shock.

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