Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajsnigrutin | Hacker News Reader

The local farmers came with 1000l+ tanks for diesel, foreigners with multiple gas cans, etc., and the local logistics couldn't handle the pressure.

View on HN

Did they not have rationing based on odd/even number plates in 1980s?

Could also be that they didn't have sufficient reserve and would rather blame hijackers?

They're blaming the lack of cisterns to transport gas from storage to individual gas stations, because everyone went to get gas, and some hoarded a lot of it

example: https://www.zurnal24.si/slovenija/bralec-v-soku-mirne-vesti-...

I mean... we also have a huge factory making toilet paper here, and we had the same toilet paper crisis during covid... everyone suddenly needed 10 packs of toilet paper for some reason.

Yes. When people saw that some stations were out of it everyone and their mom brought out their old beaters and canisters and refilled those too, just in case.

Rest assured the toilet papers fiasco didn't only affect this corner of the world.

Foreigners were coming to Slovenia just to buy gas? In such quantities that it strained infrastructure?

That definitely sounds like something that happened.

As if "multiple gas cans" wouldn't still be well under the 50 liter/day limit.

No numbers provided, but from TFA:

>In Slovenia, this has resulted in so-called "fuel tourism", as drivers from neighbouring countries, particularly Austria, take advantage of the lower, regulated prices here.

"Drivers" doing this isn't solved by a 50 liter limit.

Well, Slovenia is a small country and has land borders with many others. Imagine that gas in New Jersey was $1 per gallon cheaper than in New York and Pennsylvania. I guess a lot of people would drive to NJ gas stations.

Yep

And i'm saying that as a guy who drives to italy to buy pasta, booze and parmesan cheese. Two bottles of jack daniels and the cost of gas is covered by the price difference (well... not anymore).

A European buying American booze? I thought that had stopped?

Not at all. Some Europeans have indeed boycotted American goods but Europe is still a very important market for Jack. I suspect these boycotts are far less common than you would believe from reading Reddit and so on. The vast majority of people in any country don't really care about politics and just buy whatever they like.

and all the twitter democrats have moved to canada, right? :)

Yes, mostly italians and austrians

https://svet24.si/novice/slovenija/gorivo-dizel-bencinski-se...

https://sobotainfo.com/novica/lokalno/foto-video-neverjetna-...

https://sobotainfo.com/novica/globalno/video-avstrijci-k-nam...

https://www.prlekija-on.net/lokalno/40253/ponekod-zmanjkalo-...

And it's not the first time:

https://vecer.com/slovenija/izredne-razmere-zaradi-navala-na...

Slovenia is a small country with 2 million people, bordering countries with a total of over 82 million people. The neighbors are also relatively rich countries, such as Austria and Italy

Those are just statistics and don't have anything to do with gas.

Canada is a country of 35 million bordering a rich country of 350 million.

Driving over a border in Europe happens without you necessarily noticing.

That isn’t true of US borders.

Yes and if (1) gas in Canada were cheaper than in the US, and (2) the border between the countries was completely open, then you’d indeed see people going to Canada to buy gas.

I'm sure there's plenty of border crossings for cheaper goods.

I'm skeptical this happens in such numbers as to strain national infrastructure.

Tellingly, the ration put in place applies to Slovenian citizens, not just foreigners. Which should tell you something about "who is being blamed" vs "what solves the problem".

It would probably be illegal under EU law to discriminate between residents and non residents of Slovenia

Did you travel in Europe? Even without crisis, gas stations are often way busier on the cheaper country's border than more expensive.

My friends living in Switzerland (near the border) always go to Germany to fuel up. And, even without a crisis, gas stations on the cheaper sides of borders are often way more crowded than on the other side.

Also, keep in mind that Slovenia is roughly the size of Los Angeles. Or not much wider than Long Island. If there fuel was 30% cheaper on one side of Long Island, than on the other, I'm sure plenty of people wouldn't think twice about that.

Ah yes, the rich people of switzerland, doing their weekly shopping in germany :)

Imagine gas being the same as toilet paper... you know exactly how much you use daily on average and you optimize the distribution.

https://www.24ur.com/novice/gospodarstvo/bencin-nafta-dostav...

That means they transport 110-120 tanker trucks of fuel daily, and in "times of crisis", they can do approximately 200 tankers per day.

Now imagine just the people from gorizia going across the border to buy gas in nova gorica (the country border goes literally through the city, gorica = gorizia, nova gorica= new gorizia), and instead of eg. 1 tanker truck that day, they now need 4. Just in one small cizy.

Then there's trieste, a city of about 200k people, and just ~10km away is the city of sežana (13k pop and 6 gas stations).

Then there's villach in austria and gas stations in slovenia ~20km away.

Croatia? Zagreb (capital, almost 800k pop) is ~20km away form slovenia.

And then you get the news that there is no gas at this or that gas station, and all the locals pick up their gas cans, jump into their cars and go fill up their cars + 20, 40 liters of extra gas in cans.

To go back to the toilet paper crisis... we didn't even need foreigners coming, just the media showing the situation abroad was enough to cause a shortage of toilet paper locally.

My family with 3 people, two dirt bikes, and a gas generator for camping owns four 5 gallon gas cans. So I alone without trying can fit 80L without even filling up my car.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com