Diamond Logistics Founder & CEO Kate Lester says that releasing oil reserves is no substitute for a resilient UK supply chain
The prospect of lower diesel prices following the release of 100 million barrels of oil may offer some short-term relief, but Kate Lester, Founder & CEO of Diamond Logistics, says the move highlights a far bigger problem: the UK’s lack of resilience when it comes to fuel supply.
Diamond Logistics works with more than 1,000 ecommerce businesses and says fuel costs are already putting significant pressure on SME’s operating on increasingly tight margins.
“Releasing oil reserves to bring down the price of diesel is not a solution – it is a sticking plaster over a much bigger problem and it is deeply concerning,” says Kate Lester. “The fact that the UK has less than 40 days of fuel reserves is nothing less than shocking and should set alarm bells ringing. Successive governments have failed to properly understand just how vulnerable our supply chain is, and we are now seeing the consequences of that lack of long-term thinking.
“For our ecommerce customers, fuel price rises aren’t just an additional expense. They hit their core operation – their delivery costs, their margins and ultimately their ability to compete in what has become a price driven market. And with this in mind they can’t simply pass those costs on to customers – it’s simply not sustainable.
“If diesel prices come down, it will provide some short-term relief. But what it doesn’t do is address the bigger picture of ensuring a resilient supply chain that these businesses need.
“And the timing makes this even more critical. We are heading into peak and Christmas – the busiest period of the year for many of these businesses – when demand for transport and delivery capacity surges.
“We cannot keep lurching from one fuel crisis to another and pretending that releasing reserves is a strategy. It isn’t. It is a warning sign that we have failed to build the resilience our economy desperately needs.”
