Acute fuel shortage in Chennai | Serpentine queues

DISLOCATED SUPPLY? oil companies have said it was only a temporary problem caused by supply dislocation.

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Keywords: Chennai, Shortage

Chennai: Police personnel were on Monday deployed at various petrol stations to regulate thousands of motorists who thronged the outlets fearing acute shortage of fuel in Chennai. The city has been reeling under limited fuel supplies for the past few days.

However, the oil companies have said it was only a temporary problem caused by "supply dislocation" and assured that the situation would be normalised soon.

With most of the petrol stations either selling branded petrol or displaying no stock boards for the fourth straight day, serpentine queues were seen in front of them across the city.

The likely impact of the indefinite lorry strike called by the All India Motor Transport Congress from July 2 has further increased the anxiety of the motorists.

Tamil Nadu Petroleum Dealers' Association President, M Kannan said that the long queues were due to limited quantity of fuel supplied by some of the public sector oil companies.

"Though some companies have supplied fuel today, about 50 per cent of petrol bunks have gone dry,” Kannan said, adding the petrol and diesel supplied this morning was not even sufficient for the day.

He said the proposed lorry strike would further complicate the issue.

State-level coordinator of oil industry, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and the Executive Director, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, State Office, V K Jayachandran said the problem was only temporary and due to “a dislocation in diesel supply” to the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL).

However, oil companies have sounded a warning on fuel supply. BPCL says the supplies will be difficult to sustain, given the current, over 20 percent growth in demand.

Director, Finance, BPCL SK Joshi said, “'If you look at the starting of the year, the initial growth rate of oil demand was beyond 20 per cent. Managing this kind of high growth will certainly be a difficult situation, but about 8-10 per cent growth rate should not be a problem."

(With inputs from PTI)