At gas stations in large parts of the country, it is twice as busy as usual on Friday. Motorists fill up quickly before petrol and diesel prices go up on Saturday due to excise duty increases. Dozens of gas stations have even run out of fuel. About eight hundred tankers are used to refill the empty stocks – the maximum number.
The Cabinet decided temporarily reduce fuel excise duties in March 2022 due to high energy prices. These were partly the result of the war in Ukraine. The measure was extended once by six months on 1 January.
The government will reverse the temporary reduction in two steps. Coming Saturday (July 1), a liter of petrol will be 17 cents more expensive, while a liter of diesel will cost 12 cents more. A full tank will therefore be about five to ten euros more expensive. Excise duties are expected to rise even further at the end of the year.
Twice as busy
The pump has been busy since Wednesday. “The turnover of petrol stations was then 20 percent higher than usual,” says Erik de Vries, director of the trade association for petrol station owners and fuel transporters NOVE. According to him, gas stations have been warning their customers for weeks about the upcoming rush. “It could have been even worse today,” says De Vries.
According to De Vries, Friday is much busier than usual: turnover at petrol stations is at least 50 percent higher than normal on Friday morning. De Vries says that several dozen filling stations are without fuel as a result. “But that is temporary. Hundreds of drivers are currently driving through the Netherlands to refill the petrol stations. They are currently working overtime, no one is allowed to go on holiday now”. Due to their efforts, especially filling stations with a low storage capacity are dry on Friday, according to the director of NOVE. According to De Vries, the problems are not greater in specific regions of the Netherlands.
Filled jerry cans
De Vries says that storms at gas stations such as Friday occur more often. This was especially the case with earlier announced increases in excise duty on fuel. “With a price increase of about 5 cents per litre, you can see that things are getting busier,” he says. Also last year, when oil prices skyrocketed, there were long queues at gas stations. But the most extreme fuel shortage at filling stations occurred when the water level of the Rhine in 2018 was so low that ships could not sail to fuel depots. “As a result, almost four hundred filling stations were dry,” says De Vries.
In the meantime, some motorists are even passing by with jerry cans to take advantage of the lower petrol and diesel prices, several report. regional media. The gas stations try to manage the crowds themselves. They deploy extra cashiers and traffic controllers.