INSLA

Petrol attendants stand around outside this Shell Garage in Mouille Point, which had to turn away motorists looking for petrol.

NATASHA BEZUIDENHOUT

Staff Reporter

AN ongoing fuel shortage and the shutdown of a Durban refinery have been blamed for petrol stations across Cape Town and elsewhere in SA running dry on the eve of the latest petrol price rise.

Petrol went up by 34 cents last night – from R10.61 to R10.95.

Fuel retailers have also dismissed claims by some motorists that they were deliberately withholding stock to make money from the increase.

Reggie Sibiya, the Fuel Retailers Association chief executive, said: “It will not make sense to withhold stock when you have salaries, electricity and other things to pay.”

He said the industry had been experiencing a shortage since October. “There has also been the shutdown of the Sapref refinery in Durban, which means for weeks the refinery has not been supplying stock. Supply and demand is not working 100 percent.”

Sibiya said the biggest problem area was Gauteng.

“Shell, Caltex, BP and Engen are affected in Gauteng, Western Cape and Kwazulu-Natal.”

Craig Proctor, from VIC Proctor Motors in Three Anchor Bay, said the petrol station had been having fuel problems on and off for three weeks. “On Saturday we had no fuel and today (yesterday) we ran out of fuel. This has happened four to six times in the past few weeks.”

He said it was not true that fuel was deliberately being withheld.

“It is bull. There is no benefit to holding fuel. We have a loss of R20 000, which includes paying the petrol attendants.”

Petrol attendant Wilder Jongile said the shortage was extremely worrying as they had to turn away motorists, affecting his tips.

“My children take taxis to school and now I don’t have taxi fare for them.”

Thembeka Mdunyelwa, manager of a Shell garage in Sea Point, said the station had ordered more fuel. “We started running out of fuel on Monday afternoon, because there is apparently a problem at the refinery. Although we have ordered fuel we haven’t received any. At the moment we only have diesel.”

Motorist Marc Hoffman, who was turned away from one service station, said: “It’s irritating… I drove past a Total garage because there was such a long queue and now there is no fuel over here. I have to try a third petrol station.”

Avril and George Sutton, who rides a scooter, were also turned away: “We heard on the radio about petrol stations wanting to make money on the price hike and I don't think they need to do that. They can still make a profit on the old price, before the price hike”.

Shell SA spokesman Elton Fortuin said shortages of certain fuel grades at some of its retail sites were unrelated to the fuel price change.

“Shell SA is experiencing fuel supply constraints due to the unscheduled shutdown of the Sapref refinery and recent supply issues at a third party refinery in Cape Town.

“We are taking all reasonable steps to put alternative plans in place, including activating contingency measures to procure product from a range of other potential sources.”

Chevron spokeswoman Suzanne Pullinger said the Cape Town Refinery was fully operational.

“We are meeting all of our contractual supply obligations, and are speaking to industry partners on a daily basis to manage the national fuel supply balance.”