Stockpiling agency: 15% of gas stations have generators

Fifteen percent of fuel stations in Estonia are equipped with generators, and the country has enough fuel reserves to last for three months, the head of the Estonian Stockpiling Agency has said.
Ando Leppiman, chairman of the management board, told Wednesday morning's "Terevisioon" that the desynchronizing process away from the Russian grid in February was a "valuable lesson" for both the agency and state.
"It was a lesson in understanding what the consumer actually wants, me as a car owner. The consumer does not want to know whether there is some emergency fuel station or crisis station somewhere. The consumer wants to know where they can actually get fuel," he said.
The agency had previously made a map of facilities supposed to stay open during a crisis, and this has now been improved. Data has been collected from fuel retailers about where they have generators

"Currently, 15 percent of Estonian fuel stations are equipped with generators. We've updated our map layer, and the Estonian map has become significantly denser with these dots. It must be said that not all fuel stations in Estonia will remain operational in the event of a power outage, but quite a large number will," Leppiman added.
Where generators are located is decided by the company, not the state, and likely based on "business considerations."
The chairman said many facilities can also use generators in crises.
Speaking about fuel reserves, Leppiman said the country has operational reserves for more than three months. "That's more than 90 days. The requirement is 90 days," he said.
"The Estonian Stockpiling Agency itself does not own any terminals; we use existing private sector terminals. And there are actually quite a lot of them. Of course, from a security standpoint, it makes no sense to keep the reserve in one place. Our job is to ensure it's sufficiently distributed," Leppiman said.
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Editor: Aleksander Krjukov, Helen Wright
Source: Terevisioon, interview by Martha-Beryl Grauberg