KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

There was an air of un­cer­tain­ty among Unipet em­ploy­ees, not on­ly about their jobs but about the sup­ply of fu­el to the var­i­ous sta­tions in South Trinidad.

Fu­el lev­els at the com­pa­ny’s fu­el sta­tions were near­ing their ends and staff said they had no in­for­ma­tion on whether the com­pa­ny had fu­el to sup­ply to the sta­tions.

The short­age comes as the Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny cut off its sup­ply to Unipet af­ter a ne­go­ti­a­tion be­tween the two com­pa­nies failed. Paria al­so stat­ed that Unipet had de­fault­ed on pay­ments owed for Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber. Paria said this it had the po­ten­tial to af­fect its abil­i­ty to pur­chase fu­el from its sup­pli­er. In a me­dia re­lease on Tues­day, NP as­sured the pub­lic that it can sup­ply the na­tion.

When mo­torists pulled up at the fu­el sta­tion along Union Road, Mara­bel­la, no park­ing signs blocked the pumps and a sign stat­ed that there was no sup­ply of Su­per Un­lead­ed gas. When the Guardian Me­dia team vis­it­ed at noon, all fu­els were fin­ished. 

At La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do, there was fu­el, but the staff there said they were run­ning low. Asked about whether the sta­tions would be shut­ting down, they said there was no in­for­ma­tion from the com­pa­ny on this as ne­go­ti­a­tions were on­go­ing. This was the same at the sta­tion along the South­ern Main Road, Mara­bel­la.

For some mo­torists, they fill their tanks at any fu­el sta­tion so their on­ly con­cern was whether there would be long lines at the NP pumps. For Bri­an Camp­bell, he us­es Unipet be­cause of the dou­ble fil­ter sys­tem. He said at NP sta­tions, he got wa­ter in his diesel, which caused him to spend $70,000 to pur­chase a new en­gine. Camp­bell lives in La Brea where there is on­ly an NP sta­tion.

“This wor­ries me be­cause I pre­fer the dou­ble fil­ter sys­tem here. I had to spend $70, 000 for a new en­gine be­cause of wa­ter in the diesel at the NP sta­tions. I nev­er got wa­ter at the Unipet sta­tion,” Camp­bell said.

The lack of sup­ply did not cause over­crowd­ing at the NP sta­tions up to noon, how­ev­er, mo­torists are con­cerned that there would be a rush for gas soon.