Greeks queue for petrol as fuel truckers strike

ATHENS, May 10 (Reuters) - Thousands of Greeks queued for hours at petrol stations to fill up their cars on Saturday as a fuel truck drivers' strike started to hit supplies.

Some 70 percent of stations around the country had run out of petrol, officials said, as the strike to press for higher distribution fees for truck drivers entered its fifth day.

"We have demanded an increase of our commission fee by 13 percent," Giorgos Tsavos, fuel truck union president, told reporters on Saturday. "We have no other way to fight if we want to save our businesses other than this strike."

Cars lined streets around stations that still had petrol left. Some queues stretched more than two kilometres.

"I toured 15 petrol stations across most of northern Athens but none of them had any fuel left," driver Dimitris Leontaridis told Reuters. "I had not planned for this and now I don't know how I'll get to work on Monday."

The government said it could not meet truck drivers' demands.

"It is not possible to talk about a spike in consumer prices and then give such increases in commissions," Transport Minister Costas Hatzidakis said.

Petrol station owners said they expected the shortage of fuel to worsen on Monday. Some have raised the price of a litre of unleaded fuel by as much as 35 percent.