Motorists face chronic fuel shortages and soaring prices at the pumps after one of Britain’s biggest fuel refineries went bust, petrol retailers have warned.
Forecourt bosses and MPs said there was a risk of parts of the South East ‘grinding to a halt’ amid reports production had stopped at the Coryton refinery, which supplies around a fifth of the fuel in the region and 10 per cent of the UK’s supplies.
The closure of the giant Essex refinery also threatens to push up pump prices as supplies diminish.
The warning came as the refinery’s Swiss parent company Petroplus said talks with its lenders had broken down and it would be filing for insolvency with the loss of up to 1,000 UK jobs.
Petrol retailers warned Treasury minister Danny Alexander in a face-to-face meeting that the financial crisis at the Coryton refinery in Essex - one of the UK’s biggest suppliers of fuel would cause chaos at the forecourts if it ceased production, the Mail can disclose.

I have a friend who works at the plant, who at 51 years of age finds himself with the prospect of looking for a new job along with perhaps 900 other former colleagues. With his only daughter getting married in the summer, a mortgage to pay off, and his disabled wife unable to work, there were a few tears shed in his house last night.

It's worth remembering that it's not just the prospect of us lot queuing for fuel in the next few days (I saw that already in Ickenham last night), but there;s personal trauma associated with this shock news as well. Let's hope they find a buyer