Europe could run out of jet fuel in 6 weeks, IEA chief tells AP
Stock photo of a British Airways plane taking off from London Heathrow Airport.
Stefan Rousseau – Pa Pictures | Pa Pictures | Getty Images
The head of the International Energy Agency warned on Thursday that Europe has perhaps six weeks of jet fuel left as the airline industry continues to grapple with headwinds from the Middle East crisis.
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said the Strait of Hormuz blockade would lead to “the biggest energy crisis we have ever faced.” Interview with Associated Press on Thursday.
“In the past there was a group called ‘Dire Straits’. Right now it’s a very difficult situation and it’s going to have huge impacts on the global economy. And the longer this goes on, the worse it’s going to be in terms of economic growth and inflation around the world,” he said.
He added that the broader economic impact includes “higher oil (gasoline) prices, higher gas prices, higher electricity prices” and that some parts of the world are “hit worse than others.”
Birol had previously warned that the energy crisis would worsen in April as oil supply constraints worsened.
“There is nothing in April,” Birol said last month. “The oil loss in April will be twice the oil loss in March. On top of that, there is LNG and others. I think this will lead to inflation, I think this will cut economic growth in many countries, especially in developing economies. In many countries, energy rationing may come soon.”
Analysts repeated similar warnings to CNBC earlier this week; Claudio Galimberti, chief economist at Rystad Energy, told CNBC’s Ritika Gupta on “Europe Early Edition” on Tuesday that the situation facing airlines “very much depends on how many barrels are going to flow through the Bosphorus.”
“We’ve seen these ships stop now, so the supply from the Middle East is exhausted and we need new ones,” Rico Luman, senior economist at ING, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Tuesday.
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