Saul Kavonic

But to the extent that the government is not fully successful in its diplomatic approach here, then we are going to be potentially left short.

And that's why you're starting to see already some signals from the government about demand management measures being taken place in Australia.

You've seen the release of the advertising campaign.

Essentially encouraging people to be more conservation conscious and use less fuel with their cars, you know, make sure your tyres are pumped up, etc.

We're also going to see measures where government employees are asked to be working from home where they can, more restrictive on government travel.

This is the beginning on the path towards rationing.

I hope and expect we won't get to the drastic stage of having to ration fuel and forcing people in cities to go without, et cetera.

But we're at the beginning of the steps towards that end result.

The fact that the government is starting these demand management approaches and strategies

is a sign that behind the scenes, despite their calm words, there is some panic in the government.

They realise a shortage could come and they realise their diplomatic efforts are not being fully successful and so they do have to prepare for the contingencies that we might end up short of fuel, particularly next month.

Absolutely.

So the beginning of crunch time is in the next week or so.

So the very last tankers of crude from the Middle East that left before the war are due to arrive, including in Australia, I think, in the next week.

And then that's the last of them.

So that's when the real shortage begins.

So the real crunch is going to come later this month and particularly in May.

and right now the government has you know according to their reporting we have contracted for fuel to get us through most of may the problem is that in a time of crisis contracting for fuel does not necessarily mean the fuel is going to arrive so the proof

is going to be when the fuel actually arrives in Australia.

And in a time of crisis, we will see governments all over the world pulling strings to try and divert that contracted fuel away from us.