todays news story

My hubby had great difficulty finding a petrol station today around the Albufeira area to get some diesel for the car. After much searching and queueing he eventually got 50 euros worth but it took 2hrs in total. He said lots of petrol stations were shut because they had run out and others had little or no diesel and very little petrol left. It is also affecting the shops with fresh produce,dairy products, meat etc. I have also been told it is affecting the Lisbon area as well. I havnt heard anything about flights being affected though, fingers crossed it doesnt.

Far worse an impact is that some bars are having difficulty getting beer!

I have recently been in France, Spain and of course Portugal and it seems there is revolt in the air all over the place. The idea seems to be force governments to reduce the tax/duty on fuel to offset in part the rising prices caused by world-wide speculation and huge demands from China, where everyone is suddenly buying cars after decades of making do with bicycles.

A foretaste of things to come when the oil does run out?

Looks like the problem in Portugal is worse than here; they are stopping traffic going to Spain to fill up.

http://www.portugalresident.com/portugalresident/frontpage.asp

As far as oil running out, that is not going to happen soon. As the price increases so do oil fields which previously were uneconomic come into use. There is more oil in the oil laden shale in Alberta Canada, than the whole of the Middle east. It was just that until now it wasn't economic to process it. It is estimates that Alberta alone has one third of the total worlds oil reserves.

OMG that's all we need we go to Salema (changed resorts) on 6th July ie 3 weeks Sunday. We always hire a car for the full 14 nights duration (and they ain't cheap) so that we can get out and about. I have visions of us picking up the car with hopefully a full tank and then it sitting outside our apartment.

Just found this posted by the administrator of http://www.albufeira.com on their website re the strike crisis. Hope it puts your minds at rest.


An agreement has been reached during the night between government and truck companies. The blocus is now over but it will take 2-3 days to refill all supermarkets, gas stations, etc.
The situation in Spain on the other side is not over yet so it may still influence delivery of some goods passing through the country...

Thanks Jay

I am going to Almuñécar - Spain this saturday and i dont really know what is happening in spain and or how much it is going to effect my holiday.

Does anyone have any idea when this strike will be over or if an agreement has been definatley been reached?

Thankyou.

It's not just the shortage you need to be wary of, there's the price. I don't know about the Algarve but in Central Portugal it was about £1.30 litre for unleaded earlier this week (diesel was a bit less) and that was before the blockade.

I think the price of fuel in the Algarve last July was the same as in the UK as we had a car for the fortnight we were in Lagos, so I suppose it will have increased in line with the UK.

Quite a bit of time between now and 6th July Glynis so fingers crossed that it sorts itself out before then for you, don't suppose the price will come down, but perhaps you will have access to some.

Thanks Doe. We were going to travel into Spain as that's what we intended to do from Cabanas. Salema is a canny way from Spain so maybe it's something we'll have to look at when we get a diesel price.