petrol price to break through £5 a gallon as forecourts sell out amid fuel panic - energy storage system price

A severe fuel crisis this weekend will cause gasoline and diesel prices to soar.
Industrial action led to the closure of the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland, which produces ten per cent of the country's fuel.
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The impact will mean the closure of a pipeline that will bring Britain's third North Sea oil ashore.
There are clear signs that drivers are panicking and the crisis is deepening --
Buy, despite Gordon Brown's call for calm.
There are also allegations of profiteering in the garage.
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As a result, the average price of unleaded gasoline looks sure to break the standard of 5 per gallon (£1. 10 a litre).
It's already an average of 1.
It is predicted that the increase is as high as 10 p per liter.
Experts also warned that if a large part of the UK's 33 million drivers panic and fill the tank at the same time, the entire oil company's storage system could be exhausted.
In Scotland, with long queues lined up on the road, some garages began distributing goods to customers yesterday.
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Some gas stations have to shut down in the face of soaring demand because their supply has run out. The 48-
1,200 workers at the giant Grangemouth refinery strike an hour
Part of the pension dispute
It won't start until tomorrow.
But operator Ineos closed the plant last night and warned that it could take three weeks to resume full production.
The refinery owner said the shutdown "will have an impact on the UK as a whole" and the ministers acknowledged that they could not guarantee the supply of the front yard.
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Last night, BP was preparing to close the main pipeline in its Forties, which brought 725,000 barrels of oil a day from the North Sea.
Britain's total oil output is more than third.
The oil in the pipeline, supplied by up to 70 oil fields, was taken to BP's Kinneil warehouse near Grangemouth, where natural gas was removed and the oil stabilized.
However, the plant relies on steam and electricity from the Grangemouth refinery, and BP says it must be shut down 24 hours before a power outage.
Ineos chief executive Tom Crotty said Unite, a union representing refinery workers, rejected "repeated demands" to maintain power and steam supplies for Kinneil ".
During a visit to Swansea, Gordon Brown said there was no need for industrial action and called for dialogue between the two sides.
A Downing Street spokesman said that while industry insiders believe there is enough stock to continue to predict
The government urged motorists not to buy extra fuel.
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But energy minister Malcolm Wicks admitted that he could not guarantee that there would be gasoline in each garage and front yard every time the driver arrived, which sparked controversy.
Further increases in fuel prices will hit households hard, especially in the context of rising food and housing costs.
Despite Downing Street's efforts to avoid the recurrence of fuel protest chaos that nearly derailed Tony Blair's government in 2000, gas stations in Scotland still lined up.
A staff member at a Morrison gas station in Edinburgh said: "People are buying very panic and there is no need to buy it.
"We have been in line all the time --
I don't think we're going to run out of fuel, but if people keep buying like they do, I think it's possible.
"People have to wait 10 to 15 minutes to get the pump.
We had to arrange staff to be on duty because we were too busy.
"In Glasgow, restrictions have been imposed on some auto repair shops, and some cars have run out of lead-free fuel.
Rural areas in Scotland are hardest hit, and diesel is barely available in most parts of the country.
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Bosses in the oil industry reported "a wide range of panic purchases" and acknowledged that gas stations in Scotland and elsewhere would almost inevitably dry up.
The AA said drivers were expected to see a price increase of 3 p per liter and said there was evidence of some profiteering.
It warns that drivers will be angry with predictions if they face a 5 p to 10 p rise per liter.
Once unimaginable 5 gallons of gasoline could now be the standard for unleaded gasoline.
Chris Hunt, director of the British Petroleum Industry Association, said that British cars can store in tanks about three times as much as the oil industry can store in its own storage system.
He said: "If everyone is full at once, you can see that in just one day, a week and a half of fuel stocks are sucked.
Experts say Britain has 67 days of reserves in the system.
Grangemouth still has a lot of inventory, but the 600 tankers that are normally visited every day will not be able to get in, which is deeply frustrating.
Hundreds of "angry and provocative" workers held a mass meeting at the refinery yesterday.
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Tony Woodley, co-leader of the Union, said they were determined to win the dispute.
If Ineos is still "uncompromising" in its plans to end its final wage pension plan for new workers, he says, the escalation of the dispute is "absolutely inevitable ".
A spokesman for BP said the decision to close the North Sea pipeline will be as late as possible, but preparations have begun.
BP warned that closing the pipeline could result in a loss of about £ 50 million per day in production
Through the Ministry of Finance, taxpayers suffered half the blow.
The Conservative Party attacked the government for not taking early action to end the dispute.
Business spokesman Alan Duncan said: "The government's response to the harmful effects of the strike has been very slow.
"A long strike will affect all of us and have very serious consequences for the oil industry and the price of gasoline.
Free Democrat Sarah Taser said: "Malcolm Wicks's comments on the government's inability to guarantee gasoline supplies are very bad --conceived.
"Ministers must be very careful not to put the country into a fuel crisis that can be avoided.
"Fuel protesters have intensified the crisis by announcing that they will seize the government's discomfort and demonstrate in London next Tuesday, highlighting the" excessive "tax on gasoline and diesel --
Up to 70 p per pound.
A spokesman for the umbrella group "deal" said: "A Coffin will represent the demise of the British road transport industry, which will go from Spalding in Lincoln County to Park Lane and then to the House of Commons, put on the back of the low loader.