Kerre Woodham: Are you feeling fuel anxiety?

Today we thought it would be Fuel Friday because we haven't really touched on the oil crisis so far, have we? I filled up at my local on the way to work and it was certainly more expensive than it was last week, but nowhere near the heights we've reached previously. Back in the day I had to give up driving the Club Sport, which was a beast of a car —loved that car— when fuel topped $3 a litre. I loved her, but I couldn't afford to keep her.  

There's a lot of things like that really. With the war in Iran effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, the only tankers going through are the most tenacious or those with a death wish as they attempt to negotiate the waters. I mean, there is oil getting through, but it seems to be a, ‘well, let's give it a bash’ rather than with any kind of certainty. So, one of the main sources of oil and fertiliser has, in effect, been blocked and Iran's doubling down on that. They're just going to shut up shop and that will be that.  

The whole world is looking at their country's respective fuel gauges, wondering if they have enough in the tank to see them through the conflict. Ministers here have joined forces and are getting advice on how, well the relevant ministers are joining forces for a special advisory group and getting advice on how low fuel supplies have to go before the Government should introduce demand measures such as reducing the amount of petrol people can buy or only allowing fuel outlets to open on alternate days. So instead of car-less days, we'd have petrol-less days, appealing to people's better natures and saying please only travel if you absolutely have to.  

We have about 50 days supply including what we have in the country and what's on its way here, which hopefully will not be diverted to other countries. Shane Jones was on with Heather du Plessis Allan last night and when she said what about other countries? Can't they just divert it? Can't they tell the oil companies come on, we're a bigger customer and we should be able to have that oil that's heading down to that tiny little island nation at the bottom of the world? And he said they were hoping the strength of the contracts they had with the various oil companies would be sufficient to withstand that sort of pressure from other countries to in effect hijack our shipments. The Associate Energy Minister told her the Government had asked officials to come up with all sorts of contingency plans and yes, car-less days were included in the briefing, but they weren't a likely option. 

SJ: No, it's too early to identify any specific intervention. I mean, perhaps this thing's all over in a week, who knows? But the reality is. 

HDPA: But why are you taking advice on it if you're not seriously considering it? 

SJ: Well, no, Kiwis expect their government to be proactive. Kiwis expect us to deal with the fact that other countries are hoarding their fuel. They're introducing export restrictions. So what we need to do is ensure that we've exhaustively looked at every option so if things do deteriorate and we make decisions, they're made on the basis of quality information, not some grasshopper attitude. 

I thought he answered that pretty well and you know, of course car-less days makes great headlines and that seems to have been dominating the media over the last 24 hours, but I thought Shane Jones was quite right. They're looking at every single option that's on the table and they're weighing the relative merits of each option, which makes sense. So those of you with EVs, I don't know if you feel like you'd like to join the discussion, feel free. It probably doesn't have much to do with you as we all pile into the petrol station and try to get the petrol on the specials days, everybody refreshing their Gaspy, seeing which petrol station in your neighbourhood has the cheapest petrol. But it's so much more than that.  

It's more than just the petrol in the car to get us from point A to point B. It's the petrol within the supply chain and the diesel within the supply chain to get our goods around the country. It's the growers and their fertiliser and the farmers and their diesel stocks. How are you feeling? It's very easy to whip yourself up into a panic and a frenzy, but it is sensible to be prepared. You don't have to panic, but you can, I would have thought, certainly be prepared if you can. There was a petrol special on at my local service station so I filled up on the way to work and got the 95 for $2.88, which I was relatively happy about – who knows what it will be next week. And while I'm not in the habit of Sunday drives, I probably won't start them until this particular conflict is over. 

I think we can take sensible measures as your average commuter-consumer without panicking. If you're dependent on fuel for your work, like farmers, like growers, like Uber drivers, it might be a different story. There might be a higher level of fuel anxiety and if so, I'd love to hear from you. You know, have you been here before? Do you have reserves of your own? Probably not the Uber drivers, but perhaps the farmers might and the growers might. When it comes to the fertiliser, will you have enough? I suppose going into winter, I don't know enough about farming cycles, but would you be using fertiliser now anyway or would that be more a spring thing?  

The narrative is that it's not over yet despite what Donald Trump is saying. Iran is saying they're going to double down when it comes to closing off the Strait of Hormuz and basically hoping to strangle the enemy as they call them, whoever they perceive the enemy to be. We are a tiny country at the bottom of the world. We're going to have to get by and make do and we're just simply not used to doing that, not even during Covid I don't think. Where's your level of fuel anxiety, fertiliser anxiety, diesel anxiety at and what do you think the most sensible measure would be if we have to start looking at reducing the amount of fuel, diesel, fertiliser we consume in this country? 

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