(Bloomberg) — For Sof and Kridos Arnaoutis, the U.K.’s fuel crisis quickly evolved from an inconvenience that disrupted their weekend plans into a serious financial risk for their business. 

It started out with inflated taxi fares for a night out in London’s bar-and-club district of Soho, said Kridos Arnaoutis, who with his brother runs a plumbing supplies company. It was a difficult struggle to obtain enough fuel for his drunk friends to return to their homes.

By Monday morning, the shortages of gasoline and diesel were having a more sobering effect with wider repercussions for the U.K.’s economy. 

“My delivery van is running on fumes,” said Sof Arnaoutis, the owner of Excel Plumbing and Heating Supplies in north London. “One of my guys is out looking for fuel right now.” 

His firm had already been struggling to get supplies from overseas because of a driver shortage and the fuel crisis is making that problem even worse. 

“I’ve had two delivery guys bringing spare plumbing parts already cancel on me this morning,” said Arnaoutis. “I’ve probably got to cancel some upcoming deliveries this week, so I’ll be in trouble financially.”

Major U.K. industries from food processing to utilities were already reeling from the effects of Brexit, a supply-chain crisis and record surge in energy prices. A sudden shortage of road-fuel supply could spread the pain further into the economy. This will leave small businesses, taxi drivers and caregivers unable do their job. 

The problem began as a small issue that only affected one company last week, and quickly escalated into a major crisis for the entire country. 

On Thursday, BP (NYSE:) Plc said it had been forced to shut down a handful of its 1,200 U.K. fuel stations and restrict supplies to others because it didn’t have enough drivers for its delivery trucks. Ministers from the government visited TV studios and assured that there had been no shortage of fuel. However, lines at the pumps across the country grew despite their assurances.

The surge in purchasing was causing fuel stations to run dry by the weekend. The police intervened to stop traffic and stopped fights at petrol pumps. Long lines of cars rushed to get fuel before they ran out.

Although the U.K. government was criticised for letting the supply-chain crisis get worse over months, it announced emergency measures. It is now considering calling in soldiers to help fuel flow again. However, business groups believe that the problem is not likely to be resolved quickly.

As Monday began, fuel stations in London were closed at all points of the compass. There was no indication of any improvement. Service stations were shut down at every point in London, from Balham Hill to Holloway Road. Yet, vans and cars continued to traffic through the area in vainly searching for fuel. 

At a station in Southfields, southwest London, police were called to break up a dispute that erupted when a person on a motor scooter tried to jump ahead in a line of more than 40 motorists, some of whom said they’d been waiting over an hour. 

Businesses that sell gasoline and diesel have difficulty stating when things will improve. People who depend on their motor vehicles for their work or business are facing increasing uncertainty. 

Business Impact

“I’ve been in business 30 years and this has only happened to me once before, in the mid-90s,” said Julian Stone, owner of the American Dry Cleaning Company, which has 45 stores around London and the south-east of England. 

He said that only six vans out of fifteen had sufficient petrol to run on Monday. The company has had to limit service because it can’t promise to return customers their clothes as soon as they want. 

In a city that’s been transformed by the stay-at-home mandates of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s not just the delivery of goods that’s become a vital part of economic activity. Many services are now delivered to people’s doors by entrepreneurs who rely on their vehicles. 

“I’m a mobile personal trainer, I tend to go to my clients’ houses,” said Adam Knowles (NYSE:), who lives and works near Earlsfield in southwest London. He needs his car to transport equipment, such as kettle-bells or dumbbells. However, he didn’t have any fuel on Monday morning. “If I don’t deliver those PT sessions, I don’t make any money,” he said.

Key Workers

For London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the priority was securing supplies of fuel for the people that keep the city ticking over — hospital workers, in-home carers, taxi drivers. 

“We’ve got to get the army in as soon as possible,” Khan said in an interview with Times Radio. The mayor’s office is working with the Department of Transport to try to “make sure some petrol stations were reserved for those key workers that needed it.”

Groups from the Unite labor union to the British Medical Association echoed that call, but for now the government won’t take further steps until it can see whether a suspension of competition rules — allowing companies to coordinate fuel supplies to the most affected regions — will have any effect, according to a person familiar with the matter.

That leaves the situation on the ground “getting worse, not better,” said Steve McNamara, General Secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association. 

Increasingly many of the group’s members are traveling to motorways, where fuel stations generally still have supplies, McNamara said. That’s “a round trip of 40 miles, 50 miles, which on a cab that does 250 to 300 miles on a tank of petrol is a bit extortionate. But what do we do?”

After half a decade lurching between one political and economic drama and another — from Brexit to the coronavirus pandemic to a global supply chain crisis — the toll on the country is increasingly evident. 

At Cricks Corner coffee shop in London’s Archway district, manager Henry Coombes demonstrated the breadth of disruptions suffered by U.K. businesses, and the resilience required to keep going. 

“We couldn’t get any cups delivered for days when that ship blocked the Suez Canal,” said Coombes. “But we’re fine for now. All our bread is delivered by bike.”

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