INDONESIA’s famed holiday island of Bali is currently grappling with a severe fuel supply disruption, leaving residents and motorists facing lengthy queues to secure petrol.
The panic has triggered tailbacks stretching over a kilometre at many of the filling stations still operational.
Local media reports indicate that major tourist hotspots, including Ubud, Uluwatu, Kuta, Denpasar, Badung, Tabanan and Jembrana, are among the hardest hit.
The shortage affects both subsidised petrol (Pertalite) and the premium grade (Pertamax). According to the Detik Bali portal, long lines of vehicles, predominantly motorcycles, have spilled onto the hard shoulders of primary roads, further exacerbating traffic congestion across the island.
In Jembrana alone, 14 petrol stations have run completely out of stock, forcing some residents to push their motorcycles after running dry. One local resident shared that his wife had to leave home as early as 4.30 am and wait two and a half hours simply to fill up their tank.
Meanwhile, expatriates and foreign tourists have expressed shock after finding that roadside fuel vendors (Pertamini) and major service stations around tourist areas have run completely dry.
“The real issue is that tanker truck deliveries to stations cannot keep pace with the sudden surge in demand caused by people rushing to petrol stations all at once,” one insider explained.
Local authorities attribute the crisis to technical issues involving supply diversions between the Pesanggaran Depot and the Manggis Transit Terminal. Indonesia’s state-owned energy company, Pertamina, is currently accelerating the distribution of supplementary supplies to all affected districts in a bid to stabilise the situation.
To help ease the congestion, Pertamina has also extended operating hours at dozens of key filling stations across Bali, as authorities assure the public that supplies are beginning to recover in stages.