Fuel Crisis

Fuel Protests Grow as Oil Prices Hit 10-Year High
CNN News, September 19, 2000

Angry protesters in Sweden, Spain and Finland have blocked harbours, rail terminals and fuel depots in the latest outbreak of public unrest over high fuel prices. And in the UK, there were reports of motorists panic buying fuel amid apparently misguided rumours that fresh action over fuel prices were being planned. In Spain, 300 protesting fishermen have been blocking the entrance to a port in the province of Huelva, in southern Spain, while a similar action also closed the eastern port of Castellon. As fishermen began to lift a 24-hour blockade of the port of Barcelona, other protests were expected to intensify in Spain, with demonstrations expected in 34 provinces, including a blockade of Madrid. Spain's national fuel distribution company CLH said access to five of its centres in the cities of Leon, Rota, Cartagena, Burgos and Girona had been blocked by demonstrators. Members of the Spain's two biggest farming associations, ASAJA and COAG, said the demonstrations called for "urgent and effective solutions" to the crisis. Pedro Barato, head of ASAJA, told local radio station Onda Cero: "This is not about taking society prisoner, but about trying to draw attention to our cause. We want to exhaust the possibilities of negotiation (with the government)." But government spokesman Pio Cabanillas said: "This is not the time for demonstrations, however legitimate they may be."

In Sweden, hauliers blocked road traffic to the ports of Stockholm and Malmo, while in Finland the protests continued after lorry drivers' rejected a government offer to cut road taxes. "It's a step in the right direction, but it's not enough. It's really peanuts," said Juha Norppa-Rahkola from the Finnish Trucking Association. In France, where the protests began three weeks ago, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's Communist partners have called a protest march for Thursday to demand swift cuts in petrol prices. With reports on Tuesday that protests had resumed in Germany - where 300 vehicles disrupted traffic in Hamburg -- and blockades having already taken their toll on France, Belgium, Britain and The Netherlands, it had seemed the action was limited to Europe.

But fuel protests have spread to the Middle East, where convoys of lorry drivers mounted a "go-slow" protest on Tuesday along the main north-south road linking the Israeli ports of Haifa and Ashdod. Israelis are complaining after diesel fuel prices rose more than 13 percent at the weekend in response to rising prices worldwide. Since early 1999, the price of diesel has risen by nearly 100 per cent, and haulage companies say their fuel bill now amounts to 40 per cent of their cost. Prime Minister Ehud Barak said: "If there is a need, I will intervene. I truly hope the truck drivers will overcome the temptation to use the technical ability to clog up the country's arteries." But Gabi Ben-Haroush, chief of the Haulers and Drivers Council, said truckers could widen their protest on Wednesday and the go-slow was only a "warning shot." David Sadeh, deputy chief of Israel's traffic police, said: "We are making preparations for every possibility."

The latest round of protests came as prices for crude oil hit their highest levels in 10 years. In late trading on Monday, U.S. light sweet crude for October delivery rose 93 cents to $36.85 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. London's benchmark Brent for November delivery gained 47 cents to $34.45 a barrel. In a further development, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has warned fellow OPEC member states to resist pressure from "superpowers" on producers to bring down soaring oil prices and said the current peak in oil prices was a natural result of increasing demand. "The amount of oil they need has started to alarm them to an extent that they do not want to say how much. That means there is concern over the amount of oil existing in the world," he said. In Britain, where fuel supplies are gradually returning to normal after last week's blockades, the Labour government of Prime Minister Tony Blair has suffered. Gordon Brown, the UK's chancellor, said on Tuesday he would not compromise Britain's current economic stability despite protesters ultimatum of further action unless taxes are cut within two months. Interviewed in The Times newspaper, he said: "We are not going to ... put at risk the stability that we are achieving. It would be a bad principle to make long-term decisions on the basis of short-term revenues that may not be repeated."