Minister’s gasoline forecast went awry

Energy Minister Eric Williams was being  too optimistic when he said consumers should expect to see things back to normal in gas stations by 3 pm yesterday. At that time, there were still long lines at gas stations. Williams said there was a certain amount of “panic buying.” In a situation where the actual supplier at the refinery shuts down and there is nothing going out and then word of that gets out, “you have a situation of panic buying which exacerbates the situation, because people run to the nearest gas station and there are long lines. They might have half a tank, because they tell themselves, ‘I better fill up.’ They dry up all the gas and then there is no gas at that station,” he said.

Williams told the post-Cabinet news conference government was attempting to put in place a better system of distribution to the stations as well as improve the storage, so that this kind of situation does not develop again. Williams, however, assured that things were back on track. He said from 7 am yesterday, deliveries from the Petrotrin bond were back to normal and gasoline was being supplied to National Petroleum Marketing Company Limited. He said the vessel, NP Unity, sailed last night and supplies were being discharged into the NP system. Williams said NP inherited a gas station network which was not the best for today’s demographics.

He said some of the stations were too small and therefore, their storage tanks were small. There were also demographic shifts in the population. Furthermore, there was a high number of cars per capita. “We are in the process of reviewing and rationalising the entire NP system,” he said. The ministry was also in the process of reviewing the distribution system out of the refinery. He said government was investigating whether it needed to build a new bond for the actual dispensing of gas into trucks and it was also considering putting pipelines for distribution at other points. He said there was a lot of work going on to bring the system up to a modern level. “But it is going to take a little while,” he said. on the issue of industrial action at Petrotrin, Williams said the company and union continued to hold discussions.