Experts have predicted Australia will completely run out of fuel by the end of next month as the ongoing troubles in Syria threatens to hinder international supply channels..
A lethal combo of low oil reserves and reliance on international imports puts the nation at a great risk of running out of the stuff altogether.
The Australian reports, according to the International Energy Agency, Australia only has 43 days of of supply as opposed to the mandate that says countries should hold a stock in reserve ‘equivalent to 90 days of net imports.’
If supply channels are cut down from the Middle East, matters could become much worse.
Defence Strategy and Capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Dr Malcolm Davis says the country’s fuel reserves would hang around for ’20 days at best’ if supplies were cut.
PAHe said:
[Australia is] one of the few countries in the world that does not take our energy security seriously’ said Dr Nolan.
It would be a Mad Max world. Our society and our economy would begin to fall apart very quickly… [because] everything depends on fuel to make an economy run.
It is very serious.
GettyHe added:
Instead of investing in refinement facilities here for refining fuel, the government has decided it’s cheaper to do it overseas.
The price they pay for that in a crisis is that China can interrupt flow to Australia [from Singapore] relatively easy and our economy falls apart.
Liberal Senator Jim Molan, an ex major general in the Australian Army, told 2GB ‘we stand in real trouble and this is a single point of failure for Australia, very similar to what could happen in a cyber situation.’
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Mr Molan said:
It happens because for too long we have taken a business as usual approach.
It’s like saying we can determine the size and shape of the Australian Defence Force based on commercial factors and making the market decide.
The way that we seem to get around this is that we buy credits overseas which ignores the entire problem.
Those credits say that if things go wrong we can buy from overseas but hang on our supply lines of communication by ship are likely to be either threatened or because of insurers nothing will come to us at all.
The news comes in the wake of major US strikes on the Assad regime in Syria.
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