THE BOSS of a national oil distribution company will return to Stornoway next week to explain why his company is not to blame for the high cost of fuel in the Western Isles.
Sam Chambers,managing director of Warrington-based GB Oils Ltd,the parent company of island main distributors Scottish Fuels,will address a public meeting at the Western Isles Council council headquarters on Sandwick Road next Tuesday at 7pm.
Shouts and jeers greeted Mr Chambers’ arrival for a meeting with local politicians and fuel retailers in the town last October.
A petition calling for an investigation into pricing by distributors has since attracted more than 1,600 signatures and was lodged with the Scottish Parliament.
Scotland Office minister Michael Moore has told Western Isles MP Angus MacNeil he intends to get the Office of Fair Trading to launch a ‘wide-ranging’ investigation into alleged profiteering.
Reverend Iain D Campbell,a Free Church minister from Point,will chair next Tuesday’s meeting,which was organised by fuel prices campaigner Callum Ian Macmillan,a former councillor.
Mr Macmillan said:‘It will be up to Mr Chambers to tell us all –not the select few –why our prices are sometimes up to 20p more than on the mainland.
‘We need a proper,independent investigation into wholesale distribution costs and profits.’
Unleaded petrol was selling at 141.9p per litre in Stornoway at the weekend while it was 130.9p at several outlets at Inverness. There was a 13p per litre difference in the price of diesel at the same outlets.
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