Last checked at 
* BP closes some petrol stations
* Queues form at some petrol stations - Reuters reporters
* Britain to boost HGV driver testing
* Hauliers: there is no quick fix
(Adds queues forming at petrol stations in some places)
By Sarah Young, Victor Jack and Kylie MacLellan
LONDON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Britain on Friday vowed to do
whatever it takes to resolve a trucker shortage that has closed
petrol stations and strained supermarket supply chains to
breaking point but the haulage industry cautioned that there
were no quick fixes.
Just as the world's fifth largest economy emerges from the
COVID-19 pandemic, a spike in European natural gas prices and a
post-Brexit shortage of truck drivers has left Britain grappling
with soaring energy prices and a potential food supply crunch.
BP temporarily closed some of its 1,200 UK petrol
stations due to a lack of both unleaded and diesel grades, which
it blamed on driver shortages. ExxonMobil's Esso said a
small number of its 200 Tesco Alliance retail sites had also
been impacted.
Queues formed at some petrol stations in London and the
southern English county of Kent on Friday as motorists rushed to
fill up, Reuters reporters said.
For months supermarkets and farmers have warned that a
shortage of truck drivers was straining supply chains to
breaking point - making it harder to get goods onto shelves.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said there was a global
shortage of truckers after COVID halted lorry driver testing so
Britain was doubling the number of tests. Asked if the
government would ease visa rules, he said the government would
look at all options.
"We'll do whatever it takes," Shapps told Sky News. "We'll
move heaven and earth to do whatever we can to make sure that
shortages are alleviated with HGV drivers."
"We should see it smooth out fairly quickly," he said.
Hauliers and logistics companies cautioned that there were
no quick fixes and that any change to testing or visas would
likely be too late to alleviate the pre-Christmas shortages as
retailers stockpile months ahead.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government has insisted that
there will be no return to the 1970s when Britain was cast by
allies as the "sick man of Europe" with three-day weeks, energy
shortages and rampant inflation.
But as ministers urged the public not to panic buy, some of
Britain's biggest supermarkets have warned that a shortage of
truck drivers could lead to just that ahead of Christmas.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said that Johnson, whom
he met in New York, had asked him for an "emergency" agreement
to supply a food product that is lacking in Britain, though the
British embassy disputed Bolsonaro's account.
TRUCKER VISAS?
Such is the strain on the supply chain, McDonald's
had to take milkshakes and bottled drinks off the menu at its
British restaurants in August and chicken chain Nando's ran out
of chicken.
Suppliers have warned that there could be more shortages of
petrol because of a lack of drivers to transport fuel from
refineries to retail outlets.
The trucking industry body, the Road Haulage Association,
has called on the government to allow short-term visas for
international drivers to enter Britain and fill the gap, while
British drivers are being trained for the future.
"It's an enormous challenge," Rod McKenzie, head of policy
at the RHA, told Reuters. In the short-term he said
international drivers could help, even if it may be too late to
help Christmas, and in the longer term the industry needed
better pay and conditions to attract workers.
"It's a tough job. We the British do not help truckers in
the way that Europeans and Americans do by giving them decent
facilities," he said.
The British haulage industry says it needs around 100,000
more drivers after 25,000 returned to Europe before Brexit and
the pandemic halted the qualification process for new workers.
Shapps, who said the driver shortage was not due to Brexit,
said COVID-19 exacerbated the problem given that Britain was
unable to test 40,000 drivers during lockdowns.
"It's a bit of a global problem so it's not immediately
obvious that opening up visas would actually resolve the
problem," he told Times Radio.
(Additional reporting by Gerhard Mey, Kate Holton, Michael
Holden and Paul Sandle; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by
Toby Chopra)
