Panic

Queue at the Esso Station, Jalan Pantai, Kota Kinabalu at 4:00 pm.

Yesterday, we had some clients from West Malaysia. They wanted to have a guided tour to see some housing estates and other developments in KK. I wasn't free, but I allowed Ben to show them around in my Ninja. They spent almost the entire morning touring the city and its outskirts.

When I was driving home, I noticed that my fuel was running low. But I forgot to top it up. Later on, I did not have peace of mind thinking about my empty tank. I must top up my tank somehow; otherwise I wouldn't have been able to sleep at night! So I drove out to the station closeby and pumped RM184 worth of diesel into my tank.

This afternoon, I received a text message from a friend, saying that there's panic buying at all the petrol stations throughout the city. I rushed out, and true enough, there were traffic jams all over. I don't really know what's going on up to now. But people are jamming up the entire road system around KK City.

I have received several versions of what's going on, but I don't know which is the correct one. One version was that the price of petrol will be raised to RM4:00 per litre beginning tomorrow. I find that hard to believe. Another version is that all the petrol stations will be going on strike for at least 3 days beginning tomorrow, unless the price of petrol is raised to RM4:00 per litre.

I walked from my office to the Jalan Pantai Esso Station (see picture) and actually asked one of those pump attendants there what's going on. Is there any truth in any of the text messages? According to the attendant, he's not aware of any price hike; and he's also unaware of any plans to close the station for the next 3 days, although I have a shrewd suspicion that he'd welcome that.

Anyway, I have also received the following text message from Maxis:

"Officials from Shell Malaysia and Sabah Petroleum Dealers Assoc stressed that there is no truth to the rumours of petrol kiosks closing for 3 days"

This evening, I took one-and-a-half hours to reach home from the office. I normally take about 15 to 20 minutes, so you can imagine the crazy traffic situation out there now. Mia is still in the office. She normally arrives home at around 6:30pm to 7:00pm. But she'll probably take much longer to arrive home today.

Shortly ago, I received a text message from one of the treasure hunters. He said I might have to postpone my hunt because the hunters won't have fuel for the hunt. I don't know about postponing at this stage. But if indeed all the petrol stations are going on strike over the next 3 days, it seems that I will have no choice but to postpone the KK Challenge 4. And I am sure quite a number of people will be really disappointed if that happens! Let's keep our fingers crossed that it won't get to that.