Australian drivers have been left staggered by scenes of people hoarding fuel as petrol shortages sweep the country.
Viral video of a driver leaving a service station after filling a 1000 litre tank in the back of a ute near Parramatta attracted more than 1.7 million views and thousands of comments from people surprised by the scene.
Reactions ranged from folks who felt he was “so selfish” to people “jealous he can afford that much fuel”.
Jokers recognised that the driver was “rich rich”, and likely “still has left over toilet paper from the lockdown”.
It comes as a rural service station operator sparked debate in southern NSW by draining petrol from a service station, only to sell it half an hour away for a profit.
Facebook users in Wagga Wagga were outraged by the “inconsiderate a******” who took several trips between Ashmont and Junee, filling a large trailer-mounted fuel tank several times.
“You should have been reported,” one person said.
“Thanks to you our bowsers are empty.”
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Jaheer Hussein, who owns a Mobil service station 40 kilometres up the road in Junee, told Yahoo News that he has a supply agreement with Metro in Wagga Wagga and that “I don’t want to run out of fuel”.
Mr Hussein said his business was family-operated and he had to sell the fuel at a higher price to make ends meet.
“How can I do the same price? I’m not running a charity,” he said.
“I need at least three hours, going there, fill up there and coming back. It’s like three hours. I’m also paying. I’m not stealing.”
Local residents were divided by the move, with some questioning whether it was “illegal” to transport fuel commercially without appropriate warning signs on a vehicle.
Some urged people filming the man to “mind ya own business” and that “it’s called taking care of business, you would do the same if you had one”.
People pointed out that the Junee service station regularly sourced fuel from Wagga Wagga to top up its tanks.
But locals who were not able to fuel up felt it was unfair that someone had distributed fuel away from their area during a supply crisis.
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“My only concern was that this man filled his tank up multiple times and when we drove up to the servo there was no fuel,” they said on Facebook.
“And no it was not only me and my partner, people I know had said they needed fuel as well.”
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Independent fuel distributors not tied to major retailers such as Ampol, Shell and BP have reported that they cannot source enough fuel to supply customers.
Queensland’s Bartranz Petroleum posted on social media that it could only receive about 10 per cent of its usual quota following “extreme levels of panic buying across the fuel industry”.
