Lisbon Airport has fuel for 4 days, Faro for 3.

“At the moment, both Lisbon and Faro Airports are fully stocked with fuel”, the President of the National Authority for the Energetic Sector (ENSE) assured.

In a visit by the Prime-Minister, António Costa, to ENSE’s installations, Filipe Meirinho explained that the Humberto Delgado Airport is ready to manage four days without being supplied while Faro is only able to keep running for just three days. The context of this visit was the ongoing hazmat drivers strike as the Prime-minister wanted to assess himself the level of the institutional preparedness for that situation.

Costa, for instance, reassured the press that the country is not running out of fuel, but it is struggling with a distribution issue. “Despite existing an emergency network (REPA), people will be affected by the strike”, the PM noticed.

ENSE is monitoring in real-time the evolution of the situation, assessing the country’s 3,046 petrol stations’ capacity over the next days.

Regarding the 320 that compose the REPA, maximum fuel allowance of 15 litres per person is still on, but Filipe Meirinho recalled the current capacity is of 40 to 50%. The remaining petrol stations are 40 to 45%, despite having been supplied this Sunday.

Values between 30% and 40% are normal, Meirinho assured, as a petrol station is never fully stocked. Besides that, the petrol stations’ capacity is quite variable. Some can stock up to 100,000 litres as others can only stock up to 20,000 lts.

“ENSE has recommended petrol stations to reinforce their depots before the beginning of the strike (…) so that they do not need to refill over the next three, four, five days”, Meirinho stated. However, Galp warned its clients about potential disruptions and “disturbance in the supply”.

In an operational briefing, the PM was briefed on how the different entities are dealing with the effects of this strike as the Home Minister advised the Portuguese people “to use fuel judiciously”.