Fuel demand sees Northern Ireland oil company restrict deliveries amid Ukraine crisis

• By Peter Moor

Oil companies have described how they are "up to their eyes" with orders following the huge price rises in connection with the ongoing Ukraine crisis.

And one company has moved to restrict deliveries in order to ensure people can get supplies.

Russia is a huge supplier of oil to the UK. In recent days prices have increased past £74 a barrel to hit their highest level for more than seven years.

With prices spiking, customers across Northern Ireland have rushed to fill up their oil tanks.

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MAC Fuels, which is based in Omagh, posted on Facebook to say it would cap deliveries to 400 litres to ensure sufficient supply for all customers.

"Oil prices are rising and we have been advised of low oil supply within Northern Ireland," the company said.

"So to make it fair we as a company have decided to restrict the amount of oil we deliver to any address at any one time to ensure we can continue to deliver to our customers," it added."

Other oil companies have said their phones have not stopped ringing on Friday morning.

Many said that such was the demand that their normally office-based staff were also on the road delivering oil alongside the usual delivery drivers.

One company said: "We're up to our eyes... we have no time to talk about anything that isn't oil orders."

A firm based in the north west simply described demand as "pandemonium".

Experts fear that Vladimir Putin may now choose to cut gas supplies to Europe in response to Western economic sanctions and after Germany blocked the progress of Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

It is not just the price oil that is increasing, rising costs will affect ships and lorries used to deliver goods and have a knock on effect on essentials.

"So the price of goods, including food, will likely rise as suppliers pass on the increased cost of transportation resulting from the surging cost of oil," Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis told ITV.

"Oil going up increases the prices that suppliers pay, increases the cost of delivering goods to us and is hugely inflating in the price of food and many of the goods we always buy," Martin said. "So, if this lasts a long time, most things will go up in price," he added.