In the past week the new Australian federal budget has been released to the public and there’s been some shocking discoveries. Such as very low fuel levels with only up to 20 days of petrol left for the entire country.
The other stats are:
• 22 days of crude oil
• 59 days of LPG
• 20 days of petrol
• 19 days of aviation fuel
• 21 days of diesel remaining
Not that I know what these stats even mean – why would the government store fuel? I always thought it was the independent companies that had to import it themselves and then sell it at the fuel stations.
However if these reach 0, or of they even get close to 0 there will be chaos in the streets with people rioting over fuel and being fist fights over a liter. I don’t know how this happened but people are starting to panic and from what I’ve seen, they’ve been grabbing the biggest fuel can they can find and heading to their nearest fuel station and filling it to the brim. Not that taking fuel home is going to help you if it runs out, people will see you as a target having an extremely obvious moving vehicle among other paperweights.
There’s been a number of fuel stations I’ve passed lately that have been sold out of 91 Unleaded, 95 Unleaded, 98 Unleaded and E10. It made me instantly panicked when I headed to my local fuel station to fill up as I only had 1/8th a tank left and there were sold out signs on every bowser.
I eventually managed to find some fuel at another station the next day, but having that little and wondering how I would get to work the next day if I couldn’t find any really makes me reconsider my preps…
I’ve always had a bike on my to-buy list but never got around to it, and if I buy one that’s at least one mode of transport I could get to work if there was no fuel, not that I’d be worried about getting to work if that does happen though due to bigger problems on the horizon.
If the fuel supplies run out, the trucks stop. If the trucks stop, the food stops. If the food stops, sanity stops. Thus the collapse of a nation occurs and all a prepper can do it bug out or bug in until it’s solved.
Thinking about how I would prepare if this disaster were to happen, I came upon only two reasonable solutions. Either buying a bike and not relying on fuels altogether – which wouldn’t be much point as I’m sure jobs would dissipate quickly. The other option would be to store additional water and purchase more food before people see it as a luxury when transport stops.
Not that I believe this will happen because I’m sure a desperate government with the people on their backs would likely over compensate and store a lot more fuel then necessary – at least until the next budget is released and people see they’ve slipped back into their old ways.