Drivers are being warned not to let their vehicles run on empty as they could find petrol tanks dry soon.
BP closed some of its petrol station forecourts on Thursday, blaming on a lorry driver shortage as it struggles to find the labour to transport fuel.
Esso owner ExxonMobil has confirmed a small number of its stations are following suit.
The The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents independent forecourts accounting for around two-thirds of Britain's petrol stations, is warning drivers to keep tanks at least a quarter full so they are not caught short amid the deepening crisis.
Gordon Balmer, an executive director at the PRA, recommended that motorists keep enough petrol in the tank to reach alternative filling stations in the "rare instance" that fuel is not available at the first one they visit.
Speaking to ITV's Good Morning Britain on Friday, Mr Balmer offered accelerated training for workers and called on ex-military staff to fill lorry driver vacancies as options to help alleviate the strain on the industry.
Small Business Minister Paul Scully has vowed Britain will not head back into a 1970s-style "winter of discontent" of strikes and power shortages as widespread supply chain issues spiral.
Soaring wholesale European natural gas prices have have knock-on effects on the energy, chemicals and steel production industries, stretching petrol supply chains.
Although the industry is rushing to assure the problem is temporary, gas shortages and attendant price hike have strained supply chains already buckling under the pressure of post-Brexit lorry driver shortages that has aleady led to scenes of empty supermarket shelves.
Supermarkets are pleading for help to recruit more lorry drivers and retail industry bosses are pressuring the government to temporarily ease immigration measures to fill the gaps.
The haulage industry needs another 90,000 drivers to meet demand after Brexit made it harder for EU workers to drive in the UK and the pandemic prevented new workers from qualifying - with training up new recruits taking months.
Rod McKenzie of the Road Haulage Association trade body accused ministers of "government by inertia", allowing the situation to get "gradually worse" in recent months.
He told BBC's Newsnight: "When you think that everything we get in Britain comes on the back of a lorry - whether it's fuel or food or clothes or whatever it is - at some point, if there are no drivers to drive those trucks, the trucks aren't moving and we're not getting our stuff."
Mr McKenzie added: "I don't think we are talking about absolutely no fuel or food or anything like that, people shouldn't panic buy food or fuel or anything else, that's not what this is about.
"This is about stock outs, it's about shortages, it's about a normal supply chain being disrupted."
He said a "very short-term" measure would be to allow drivers onto the shortage occupation list and "seasonal visas" for foreign drivers.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps suggested adding HGV drivers to the skilled worker list for immigration purposes would not solve the problem, although he insisted he nothing had been ruled out.
Ministers are being warned Brits could begin panic-buying soon, as a carbon dioxide shortage threatened supplies of the natural gas used to humanely stun livestock for slaughter, package food, and put the fizz into soft drinks and beer.
The government used taxpayer cash to bail out a major fertiliser production factory this week, after it warned it was readying to shut its doors due to the rocketing price of gas.
Two of three of the UK's fertiliser plants that produce CO2 as a byproduct had already halted operations due to energy costs, leaving Britain's supply chain vulnerable.
The government has launched a food and drink supply taskforce and is in talks with the energy regulator Ofgem about whether or not a cap on gas and electricity prices for consumers may have to go up amid soaring wholesale gas prices.
But Labour is calling for a halt to plans to cut of the £20-a-week Universal Credit uplift - warning households face fuel poverty imminently as winter arrives.
And turkey producers have been warning that families could be left without the traditional Christmas dinner if the carbon dioxide shortage continues.
