A striking tanker driver sheltering from the rain under a blue-striped gazebo outside the Stanlow oil refinery boasted that, on a normal day, more than one million litres of fuel would leave the plant every hour. About 40 drivers were on picket duty outside Entrance No 2 Oil Distribution along Oil Sites Road, near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, to ensure that this would be no normal day.

Behind the fence the 20 gantries where one tanker would usually fill up while another waited were redundant. Near by, the fleet of Shell oil tankers was parked ready for the end of the four-day strike on Tuesday.

Shortly before 7am the strikers, mostly corralled by police behind barriers, cheered as the first two independent tanker drivers responded to their official request not to cross the picket line. It set the pattern for the most unusual day at Stanlow since the fuel protest eight years ago.

By midday about 20 tankers — far fewer than usual — had followed suit to the accompaniment of applause, cheers and the occasional packet of crisps. Some drivers decided to press on into the plant to “park up” but the fuel gantries remained unused.

The same striking tanker driver said: “If you were stood here on a normal day, there would be truck after truck rolling out of here. From this refinery we serve Scotland, England right down to Bristol, and North Wales. It is a massive area and no fuel is getting to the garage forecourts. They will be out of fuel within the next couple of days.”

At 7.30am Tony Woodley, the general secretary of the Unite union, arrived to denounce Shell as a “greedy employer” that had outsourced his members’ jobs to cut costs and had driven down wages and conditions.

Mr Woodley said: “Driving a fuel tanker is a skilled and dangerous job. They earn £31,800 but if they had remained Shell workers they would be on £46,000 now. Shell have got to take their responsibilities seriously.” Duncan Chisholm, the senior steward for the strikers, said: “We went to Shell four months ago to try to avoid this situation but they did not want to come to the party.”

Earlier, strikers had waved placards reading “Greedy Shell — squeezing drivers dry”. As the day wore on they made themselves more comfortable by setting out the gazebo and garden chairs, eating crisps and drinking from vacuum flasks.

Jim Cummins, 61, has worked as a driver-technician for 12 years. He recalled how the workforce was told in 1999 that their jobs were being contracted by Shell to Hoyer, their present employer. The job had become more dangerous and difficult, he said. Drivers had sole responsibility for delivering and unloading at garage forecourts. In recent months there had been four assaults on drivers by motorists, and a colleague had had to dial 999 to ask for the lifting of a roadblock set up by a garage manager.

Mr Cummins, who earns £31,815 for a 45-hour week of 12-hour shifts with unpaid breaks, said: “To be honest, I feel resentful against Hoyer and Shell but we know who the puppeteer is. Shell pay the money and they run the operation.”

Ten tips on surviving a fuel crisis

1. Don’t use a car if you don’t need to. The Government advises drivers during a fuel crisis to “walk or ride a bike” if they live close to their destination

2. Maintain your car properly. A poorly tuned engine can increase fuel consumption by 50 per cent

3. Plan your journey. “This is a huge one,” an RAC spokeswoman said. “British drivers waste the equivalent of 267 Olympic swimming pools of fuel every year due to poor journey planning”

4. Take off your roof rack. Loaded roof racks use up to 5 per cent more fuel during motorway driving.

5. Stick to the speed limit. For the most fuel-efficient cruising do not exceed 56mph. A reduction from 70mph to 56mph can reduce fuel consumption by 20 per cent

6. Don’t accelerate too quickly. “The right foot plays a huge part in fuel economy,” the RAC says. “If you change your driving technique to anticipate traffic you can increase fuel efficiency by 30 per cent”

7. Switch off your engine. One minute of idling uses up more fuel than restarting your engine. Turn off the ignition in traffic jams

8. Use electrics less. Air-conditioning can increase fuel consumption by up to 10 per cent

9. Don’t queue for fuel during the strikes. Edmund King, president of the AA, urged drivers not to “waste a drop of fuel” over the weekend.

10. Under-inflated tyres are one of the most commonly ignored causes of poor fuel economy because they have more rolling resistance

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