Carrington Clarke

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Welcome to Fuelcast.

I'm Carrington Clarke, and this is your source to stay on top of the numbers behind the ongoing global energy crisis.

It's Monday, June the 1st.

We're recording mid-morning.

Let's have a look at the figures.

The price of Brent crude has fallen to 93 US dollars a barrel since we last checked in.

The national average price of unleaded has dropped to $1.80 per litre, and the national average price of diesel has dropped as well to $2.30 per litre.

Today I'm joined by Alan Kohler to dig into the major energy headlines.

Good morning, Alan.

Alan, it's been a couple of weeks since I last had the pleasure of talking to you, and it appears when we look at those key numbers that we've actually seen an improvement in that time, but there are fears that...

that global oil supplies are approaching so-called minimum operational limits.

That is the amount of oil needed to keep pipelines and storage facilities stocked and safely running.

Veteran market strategist, Jeff Curry, who's the co-chairman of Abex Markets says it's likely that minimum operating levels will first affect Asia, then hit Europe, and then the United States.

Alan, what do you make of this warning and how close are we for this being a major problem?

It appeared early on in this energy crisis, Helen, that it was Southeast Asia and South Asia in particular that were the quickest to move when it came to protecting the storage that they already had in place and to try to limit how much they were utilising.

Is it fair to say that those are the areas that are most at risk of hitting these particular problem patches?

Looking at some of the numbers that Casey Briggs, our colleague, has been tracking, based on the government's own numbers, we actually have improved our own position here in Australia when it comes to storage of diesel, petrol and jet fuel throughout this crisis, in part because we've gone and paid, it appears, a lot of money to make sure that we can get our hands on more.

Are we relatively well insulated going forward, do you think, at least compared to other countries?

On that topic of oil storage, listener Sergey, who joins us from Canberra, asks, can very large volumes of fuel be stored in Australia without the fuel going off, i.e.