A report on the news today said that fuel stations across South Africa may run dry as most consumers rush to fill up their tanks before the fuel price increases on Wednesday. I will be the first to say that I will be trying to fill up my tank before Wednesday as that would save me a couple of rand before the big increase. But now almost everyone is thinking like I am and obviously we are all going to rush out to the nearest fuel station but we may find that the station has no fuel as everyone has gobbled it all up!

The demand for fuel will be great in the next couple of hours and the infrastructure to supply this demand will just not be sufficient and thus fuel stations will run dry.

I laughed when the Fuel Retailers Association, CEO, Peter Morgan said: “We are worried because of two issues: is there enough product in the country, we hope there is …; (then) we have no guarantees of getting that fuel because of serious constraints in infrastructure.”

The part that made me laugh was ‘we hope there is’. I am sure we all hope that there is enough fuel in South Africa to meet our needs. What a disaster if it would be if for some reason there is not enough fuel in the country. Mind you, the demand for diesel across the country has gone up due to the current power shortages as more people turn to using generators. So Peter Morgan is right in saying that he hopes there is enough fuel as there could be an excess demand with little supply especially for diesel.

We were kept in the dark about the electricity shortages in the country, and I hope we are not been kept away from news of potential fuel supply problems. No electricity and no fuel, sounds like a similar story to our neighbours in the north and look how they have turned out.