Will the petrol shortage hit Hungary badly in the middle of August?
According to Eszter Bujdos and other experts, the petrol shortage could hit Hungary badly in the middle of August. In addition, the Association of Independent Gas Stations warned locals that the number of petrol stations that have to close down would likely increase.
Oil companies try to prevent a potential petrol shortage
Eszter Bujdos told ATV that filling stations did not have enough petrol. However, the oil companies are trying to prevent the petrol shortage. The other day, Mol adopted an internal regulation according to which a car can only refuel once a day at Mol petrol stations – even if they do not exhaust the maximum frame of 50 liters. Meanwhile, the other service providers have also introduced restrictions. At OMV, you can fill up 50 liters at a time, at Shell stations you can buy fuel for a maximum of HUF 80,000 (EUR 202,94), and at Lukoil, you are only allowed to fill up 20 liters at a time.
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We might only have 10 days left
The released strategic stock covers 186,000,000 liters of petrol. However, based on the experts’ data, 20,000,000 liters of petrol are purchased in Hungary every day. Even if we take the most optimistic estimate, the stock is sufficient for 10 days at most. – reports Index. According to the president of the Association of Independent Petrol Stations, the abolition of the price cap could provide a solution. It would reduce the consumption of private users by 20-30 percent. However, Mol is only delivering half of the ordered quantity instead of the previous 66 percent to its non-contracted partners. This means that smaller petrol stations are in a difficult situation.
It is no longer possible to refuel at nearly 100 petrol stations
“Several dozen have already closed down, and I think the number of petrol station closures will increase drastically. Unfortunately, the small stations have not even received the July subsidy, let alone the one for August; the government is currently postponing this issue.” – said Gábor Egri. The experts estimate that mid-August may be the most critical in terms of petrol supply. Therefore, they think there might be further restrictions to come. As 24.hu writes, there are already around 100 petrol stations where it is not possible to refuel at all due to a lack of petrol. The operator of a petrol station in Balassagyarmat told ATV that the last time they received petrol was on Friday evening. And as this amount had already been sold out, they could not reopen on Monday.
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Source: ATV, Index, 24.hu
Add to this the issue that certain oil companies have already curbed or stopped their exports to Hungary to avoid losses because of the fuel price cap imposed by our Politicians. We can force the hand of the domestic companies – foreign not so much.