Petrol station sells 30,000 litres in two days
A WEST Drayton petrol station sold 30,000 litres of petrol in two days, but despite the demand for fuel the owner says his business is still suffering.
Yasser Ahmed, 37, said the number of people queuing has been “unprecedented” at his small local garage and that shop sales have “tanked” following days of panic-buying.
Yasser runs a four pump petrol station with his dad and they have been working round the clock since the panic buying started on Friday September 24.
Yasser saw business quickly increase on Friday and was stuck to run the petrol station on his own when things got busy.
He said: “We had a delivery Friday morning.
“I was driving in when it started hitting me. There was a lot of talk on the radio (about) panic-buying.
“When I got into work it was considerably busy, but not too bad.
“By the afternoon, when my dad left, I was non-stop and didn’t have time to breathe.
“If there was a spillage outside, it’s a single-man operation, I was having to hold everyone, clear the spillage then rush back in. I couldn’t even sit down.”
Despite warnings from the Government that there is no
shortage of fuel, Yasser says that people were convinced the fuel was going to run out.
The panic spread amongst motorists and soon Yasser was bogged down by the amount of people coming to fill up.
He continued and said: “Everyone is panic-buying through fear that it’s going to run out and, because of that, it actually has run out.”
Yasser sold 30,000 litres of fuel – the amount it would usually sell in a whole week – in just two days and was not likely to get anymore until at least midweek.
“That’s completely not normal,” he said.
“[On Sunday] we didn’t open up, we lost a whole day, today [Monday] dad is in, only because we have a lot of regular customers from the local community who are going to work and want to grab their coffee first in the morning.
“That’s the only reason we opened up. We’re not selling anything inside, our shop sales have tanked.
“People are saying on social media that petrol station owners are doing really well and making a lot of money – we’re not. We make our money from shop sales, and they’re gone.”
Despite putting in an order on Friday for more fuel to be delivered to his station, Yasser still has not received confirmation as to whether that will be delivered.
He hopes it will be delivered on Wednesday, as we went to press, but until then he has no fuel as it is all sold out.
He thanked the pandemic for allowing him to have the skills needed ‘to get by’ in this difficult situation.
In response to the petrol crisis, Travel Secretary Grant Shapps announced on Twitter on Sunday (September 26): “Another 4,000 to be trained as HGV drivers, Army to increase testing capacity by thousands & temp visa scheme until Christmas.
“This is all part of a further package of measures we’re announcing to support the haulage & food sectors to deal with driver shortages.”