EMERGENCY powers to reserve fuel for essential users will be reviewed by ministers and oil companies today amid panic buying at petrol stations across the country.

Dozens of filling stations ran dry yesterday after bogus reports of weekend panic proved self-fulfilling when motorists rushed to join queues at the pumps. Hundreds more forecourts are expected to run out of fuel by lunchtime today despite concerted efforts by oil companies to calm the situation by denying that there was a problem.

Doctors, nurses and police officers, among others, will be reserved supplies under plans by a working group involving the oil industry, police and the Department of Trade and Industry. A minimum sale of fuel could also be imposed in an attempt to stop people buying small volumes.

Public fears about fuel supplies and prices are expected to increase today as hauliers prepare to start protests outside oil refineries tomorrow. Overall fuel costs for companies were 39 per cent higher last month than a year before, the sharpest rise since 1991, according to figures released yesterday.

Gordon Brown will table an emergency international plan today to bring down oil prices. He will tell the TUC conference in Brighton today that the Government understands the problems faced by hauliers, farmers and motorists and is taking joint action to tackle the problem. Hauliers are angry that other European countries have introduced rebates for bus and lorry operators. In France companies are given a 1.5p rebate for every litre and in Belgium the figure is 4.5p. The Chancellor will propose the five-point plan, discussed yesterday with representatives from 24 countries, at meetings of the G8, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank over the next two weeks.

The proposal involves: Opec raising supply to meet increased demand and opening its books to show where the world’s reserves are; the profits of oil-producing countries being ploughed back into investment; the World Bank setting up a fund to help developing countries to invest in alternative energy; and the IMF creating a new fund for poor countries hit by oil price shocks.

Mr Brown is unlikely to refer directly to his expected decision to continue the freeze on fuel duty imposed in the Budget. He will announce in the Pre-Budget Report in November that it will be extended for the rest of the financial year.

If oil remains at $65 (£35) a barrel, compared with the Chancellor’s Budget forecast of $40 a barrel, Mr Brown will gain an estimated $2.75 billion extra from North Sea revenue in the present financial year. Economists said that the gains for the Treasury would almost certainly be cancelled out by the £1 billion-a-year cost of continuing the freeze on fuel duty.