A striking tanker driver sheltering from the rain under a blue-striped gazebo outside the Stanlow oil refinery boasted that, on a normal day, more than one million litres of fuel would leave the plant every hour. About 40 drivers were on picket duty outside Entrance No 2 Oil Distribution along Oil Sites Road, near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, to ensure that this would be no normal day.

Behind the fence the 20 gantries where one tanker would usually fill up while another waited were redundant. Near by, the fleet of Shell oil tankers was parked ready for the end of the four-day strike on Tuesday. ... Read full article