⛽️ No, You DON'T Have To Panic Buy Fuel!

Do not panic.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
My Heart podcasts here, more Gold one on one point
seven podcasts.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Playlists and listen live on the free iHeart app gold
It's Jonesy demanded driving you home. You might have said
a lot of stories from various news sites about people
hoarding fuel here.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Yeah, in Australia. It just pops up in my algorithm.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
You know, you send that picture of that guy and
he's got a giant tanker on the back of his
car where he's full drive and he's filled it up
with fuel, probably about two thousand bucks worth of fuel.
A sensible post has popped up in my feed from
a lady called Lauren Lately, and it's really good article.
It's worth reading about if you're anxious about fuel. It
says here on fuel supplies and why you shouldn't panic buy.

(00:45):
There are two issues that are being conflated in coverage,
fuel supply and fuel prices.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
So are people panicking that are fuel supplies being damaged?

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Because in Iran, yes, and we've been through this before.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
I remember when I was a kid, the last time
we went to war with around they had a thing
called odd and even number plates.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
You'll remember that you could fill up on one day.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yep, So Lauren writes here the numbers you'll see about
how many days of fuel we have thirty six days
of petrol, thirty four days of diesel. At most recent
numbers are a calculation called consumption cover days, which means
if all imports and refinering completely stopped and consumption remained
the same as usual, that is the number of days

(01:24):
that the few would cover.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
But imports haven't stopped, nor has domestic.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Refining, So why people panicking?

Speaker 2 (01:31):
So Australia we rely, we rely on a lot of
fuel imports.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
We stopped largely refining in our country. But the disruption
to the Strait of hormas.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Almost satisfying straight not as good as the Malaca Straits anyway.
That's impacting about twenty percent of the fuel shipping internationally
right now. That's twenty percent of the world, not just US.
So the biggest impact that is having right now is price.
It's not supply. And the thing that doesn't often get

(02:05):
mentioned in the media coverage looking at you talk back
radio is as Australia has introduced a minimum stockholding.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Obligation about five years ago.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Which means major importers have to hold a certain amount
of fuel stocks that the government can requisition to release
into the market in a crisis slash emergency.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Situation, so we'd never be without.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Australia has also had a liquid fuel emergency power since
nineteen eighty four. It's never been triggered. So we went
through the Iran, we went through Iraq, We've been here before.
But the problems we've got social media now.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
So can I ask you, though, why the price is
going up if the supply is not going down. Is
that because price gouging?

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Well, yes.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
The other consideration on price and supply in Australia is
all the panic buying, largely driven by the media. The
rush of people filling up because they fear a price
increase leads to petrol stations prematurely putting up their prices
because they actually haven't received the fuel that has an
increase price, they're just making people may pay more for

(03:03):
the same fuel they've already got. Panic buying is unhelpful
and actually drives It drives the problem, especially when panic
buying happens in metro areas, which adversely impacts rule.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
And regional areas.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
So if you're in the city, you don't need to
get jerry cans and load up your things. If you're
living out the back of Burke or you in Darwin
like that, yes it's going to be a problem.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
But at the end of the coast, it's not for
the supply.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
It's going to be a cost.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
We're going to see higher fuel costs, which is a case,
but if it's anything.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
We went through the.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
COVID thing with a duney paper and as Lauren writes
up here, TLDR too long, didn't read don't panic buy fuel.
We're not at mad Max's net yet. We've got a
bit to go and we've been.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Through this band. Don't put dunny paper, as you say,
in your engine.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
And try not to punch an electric car driver in
the face. And they go, should have gone with my option.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Maybe they'd have a point.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
Well okay, mhm, maybe they do. Everything's going to be
okay until we have TikTok tuker.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
TikTok Tucker's on the way, as is Instagram on gold