This has been known for Decades (I've known of it for at least a decade).

Australia only has 28 days of fuel reserves where all 3rd wold nations are supposed to have 90 days.

So what does that mean, well if oil supply gets stopped for some reason after 28 days we are in a whole world of hurt, Australia suffers the tyranny of distance, we are a vast land, without vehicles running no food gets delivered, no coal gets dug up for the power stations so the lights go out.

There is only so much fish n chips oil to make bio deisel.

Now this has been an issue for which all previous governments have chosen to ignore, but the reality is real.

www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-05/australia-looks-to-buy-us-oil-amid-reserve-concerns/11384196

28 days

lotofwind said..
Bring it on,
I have been playing heaps of Days Gone and Dying Light so Im ready for the apocalypse,

How have you prepared?

i'm going to buy silver

Its not only that, anything that leaves us with no power for more than a few days is disastrous.
Most folks have no idea nor plan.

Just the fuel thing, or a major solar flare, or a proper cyber attack could do it.

Just the inability to source water in summer- think about no water being pumped for a week in 40deg. Half the population would die right there.

Our emergency broadcast system is "tune into ABC FM" strewth most people don't even have a radio anymore.....

You don;t have to be a nutty prepper like those yanks, at least have 50L of water at home in summer.

Mark _australia said..
Its not only that, anything that leaves us with no power for more than a few days is disastrous.
Most folks have no idea nor plan.

Just the fuel thing, or a major solar flare, or a proper cyber attack could do it.

Just the inability to source water in summer- think about no water being pumped for a week in 40deg. Half the population would die right there.

Our emergency broadcast system is "tune into ABC FM" strewth most people don't even have a radio anymore.....

You don;t have to be a nutty prepper like those yanks, at least have 50L of water at home in summer.

good point. I would have to dig at well at the block or maybe build a simple rig to drill down to the water table at 4m.
Hope Im not stuck in kalgoorlie when the stuff hits the fan..
2 years ago we had a wind squall take out our town. 176 separate outages. it took 5 days with basically all the WP crews in the state coming here.. Our ice supplies got wobbly 3 days in , but somebody had the forethought to park a generator at the local ice works and keep the town working. ( the ice works lost its 10kw solar system to the wind . really dodgy installation that overhung the ridgeline.

because google constantly monitors all my internet traffic, it suggested the following vidjeo. I haven't watched it yet but will book mark it in case I need to do the needful later. Thank you google. Bring on the apocalypse. oh I also am going to rewatch some early episodes of walking dead for quick tips on how to do a supply run




EDIT: I just realised my car runs petrol not diesel. cr@p, I guess I'm scr3w3d

I'd rather be sailing.

Many of houses in Australia have solar panels and inverters already. Unfortunately all is designed to work only when grid is active. Years ago I proposed to introduce off the grid mode. With small or bigger battery each solar installation may deliver the power to home when grid is down. We don't need for apocalypse for this to happen. Quite often usual weather event or fires may cut the power supply off.

I lived in South Africa in the 70's when they were subjected to fuel rationing owing to sanctions.

It was quite interesting to see the impact that it had. Naturally the Gubmint was seriously involved. Doing stuff like limiting opening hours at servos. No fuel at all on the weekend. Mandatory shut from 6pm to 6am.

Coppers running around taking odometer readings on Friday as you left town and Monday when you returned to make sure you hadn't driven further than a tank would get you. Mandatory 80k speed limit everywhere. Bugger in in a place where the roads are (were) so good.

Of course the black market thrived.

I've never understood the carryon that people subject themselves to with regard to energy crises. I've lived without refrigeration since 2012. If you modify your diet to exclude everything that doesn't need refrigeration it's not a problem. People have become so infatuated with food it's mind boggling.

It will be very interesting to see the impact on people severe shortage of fuel and electricity will have when it happens. I reckon that the majority of people, particularly city people, are so far detached from reality that the vast majority will lose the plot and the best course of action would be to put as much distance between them and yourself as is practically possible!

Hey Harrow, I bet we have more than 28 days reserves of new cars based on current new car sales numbers

I'll start making a tinfoil hat

We actually have oil here don't we?

Its just that we don't refine it here? or are the reserves too small?

Okay, assuming we do have oil here, where does it go after its recovered?


(I bought a book ages ago about Joadja (creek?) that was a place where they were extracting shale oil for fuel, so there must be other places we can get oil, maybe not as cheaply though.)

Harrow said..

FormulaNova said..
We actually have oil here don't we?

Its just that we don't refine it here? or are the reserves too small?

Okay, assuming we do have oil here, where does it go after its recovered?


(I bought a book ages ago about Joadja (creek?) that was a place where they were extracting shale oil for fuel, so there must be other places we can get oil, maybe not as cheaply though.)

The Caltex oil refinery at Kurnell was shut down in 2014, and is now just used to store fuel imports. The Shell oil refinery at Clyde was shut down in 2012, and is also now a fuel import terminal.

Seems we're determined to make ourselves dependent on the rest of the world in every way possible. Aluminium smelters also shutting down. I'm surprised we still make any of our own steel.

I also thought we had no refineries here, but I think there is a BP one in Perth, at Kwinana.

The one that was here at Kurnell was only for certain types of oil I believe and not for petrol.

Going off on a tangent, I think our dollar is too high, probably from mining exports, which makes everything else uneconomic, which I think is a mistake.

Mobydisc said..
Australia has plenty of oil, its just not financially viable to extract it. Personally I think if petrol or diesel reserves fell to very low levels in Australia with prices suddenly going up, a lot of ships full of these fuels would start coming here to sell their cargo. Thus the problem would solve itself through the market operating.

If there were restrictions on the market operating like blockades and sanctions, it would not take too long for fuel to be produced here. The methods to do it are pretty well established and we'd have the capital to do it. Just like with a lot of other production, if its cheaper to get it done somewhere else then it makes sense to get it done somewhere else. This includes someone else storing fuel for us. Yes it could work out bad for us if the Chinese or Americans decide to declare war on Australia.

Is oil sold that way? Its a genuine question. Do people just bring their tanker to you, or do you go pick it up from the supplier in your own tanker? Do you make contracts well ahead of time, or do you just pop down to the local oil supplier and buy up on the day?

Someone on here must know, but I suspect Australia has a considerable supply of oil. Surely there are oil rigs off the coast here somewere. I think in Vic and WA, surely?

I know when I was reading up on Venezuela's oil problems that they had a drama when they filled the tanker with the wrong grade of oil, and had to pay a penalty to the tanker for having the wrong grade. I suspect that sort of cash handover is not normal and it would have been contracted well before delivery.

It's just an economic argument, if/when it becomes viable to refine fuel here again they'll do it. We used to have two here in Brissy (BP and Caltex) but I'm pretty sure they're just storage depots now and it's shipped in from offshore.

Lazysurfer said..
the only reason we still have the unprofitable BP (only) Refinery is because of its strategic locations.

Right next door the HMAS Stirling (garden Island)

It's not profitable to have a refinery in Australia.

Been trucking crude from (Rock Oil) Dongarra to BP Kwinana to process for a lonnnnng time.
Light crude, but must be a quid in it for BP to keep buying and processing

elmo said..
Australia only has 28 days of fuel reserves where all 3rd wold nations are supposed to have 90 days.

i mean, is that like some kind of rule