(Trinidad Express) Despite assurances from Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine, the National Petroleum Company (NP) and Petrotrin that there would be no shortage, panic-buying motorists purchased all the fuel at most service stations in South and Central Trinidad on Tuesday.
And despite fuel tankers refilling many service station reservoirs overnight, thousands of persons queued up again yesterday to fill tanks ahead of threatened strike action by Petrotrin employees.
The long lines leading to service stations caused traffic chaos, and police and traffic wardens were deployed to bring order.
Within hours of Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) president general Ancel Roget delivering a strike notice on Petrotrin on Tuesday, there was no diesel fuel at pumps between Mayaro and San Fernando, and long lines at service stations in Couva and Marabella.
Only two out of a dozen service stations contacted by the Express had adequate supplies of super or premium gasoline and diesel fuel.
At the Carib Street service station in San Fernando, diesel ran out on Monday and, up to yesterday, no fuel tankers had arrived to refill the reservoirs.
A service station official said: “We spoke to the people at the NP South office and they said they themselves don’t know when we will be getting. This is how critical the situation is.”
Several other service stations contacted also confirmed that they had no fuel with one or two just having received small loads of either premium or diesel.
A manager at Mohammed’s Service Station in Point Fortin said, “We are just getting some diesel, but we don’t have anything else and we don’t know when we are getting. We just waiting.”
At another service station in San Fernando, the manager said fuel was sold out on Monday and the business was effectively closed.
Mohan’s service station in Penal was almost out of gasoline yesterday.
The manager said, “I have been here since 8 a.m. and I called NP and they told us that they were sending a truck from Port of Spain but up to now nothing.”
A Unipet service station in Fyzabad ran out of diesel around 9 a.m and premium around 11 a.m. “All we have is a little super (gasoline),” an official said.
A Unipet official said the company had no idea when more fuel would be delivered since the supplies came from Petrotrin in Pointe-a-Pierre and not NP.
“NP has storage in Port of Spain so once NP is not on strike they could send gas all over the country. But we are different, we buy directly out of Petrotrin’s refinery so once they have the strike action in the refinery it will be a little harder for us,” the official added.
