Commuters in several districts in Ho Chi Minh City met lots of difficulties looking for gasoline on Sunday as many filling stations claimed they were out of stock.

At around 2:00 pm on Sunday, Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters arrived at the Tai Loc Thinh 2 petrol station in Cu Chi District, which appeared to be open as usual.

However, all attendants claimed that they had run out of gasoline, forcing drivers to leave with their tanks almost empty.

An employee said the facility would resume petrol sales on Monday afternoon.

A similar situation also occurred at petrol station No. 6 in District 12, with employees saying they only had oil products available.

After finding out they were being filmed, a man claiming to be the owner began to threaten the correspondents.

At another station in District 12, gasoline was also said to be out of stock until Monday.

At a petrol station in Go Vap District, an attendant stated that they had run out of gasoline since Saturday afternoon and were unable to restock as of Sunday.

Several market watchdog officers had already inspected the venue and confirmed that it did suffer gasoline shortage, the employee added.

The situation gave a lot of residents a hard time looking for gasoline on Sunday.

Some even had to push their motorbikes for a long distance to find a filling station where gasoline was still available.

The short supply appeared to only affect small businesses, while petrol stations run by major firms were still in normal operation.

A representative of a petroleum retailer admitted that the current discount rate offered by producers is too modest, which results in their low profitability.

Tran Y Lan, a representative of a petrol station run by the Ngoc Den 2 private business in Binh Thanh District, explained that local residents had been hoarding gasoline over the past days as there were rumors that fuel prices would further increase in the coming time.

The station thus ran out of stock by the end of the week and could only refill its tanks on Monday, Lan elaborated.

On Monday afternoon, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and Ministry of Finance announced the latest adjustment in oil and gas prices in the country, pushing retail rates to an eight-year high.

E5RON92 and RON95-III gasoline prices both increased by VND960 (US$0.04) per liter to VND25,531 ($1.12) and VND26,282 ($1.15) per liter, respectively.

Oil prices also surged by VND280-940 ($0.01-0.04) per liter.

This is the fourth consecutive increase of fuel prices in the country since the beginning of this year due to the global uptrend and low supply in the country.

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