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Speaker 1: Now, one of the country's top economists, reckons we might

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Speaker 1: not need to start thinking about the old work from

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Speaker 1: home orders to save fuel. Sri Lanka has moved to

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Speaker 1: a four day week from Wednesday due to Collins, though

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Speaker 1: the minister who runs the show here says, no, we're

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Speaker 1: not considering any changes right now.

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Speaker 2: Kelly E.

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Speaker 1: Cult is westpax chief economist and with us hig Kelly, Hi, Now,

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Speaker 1: when you say we should be considering it, do you

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Speaker 1: mean we should be considering it right now or in

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Speaker 1: the future.

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean I think it's probably time to think

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Speaker 3: about it, because if I look at how that supply

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Speaker 3: chain is working to get the fuel to hear, it's

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Speaker 3: very much a just in time system. And the flow

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Speaker 3: of crude oil from the Persian golf oil fields to

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Speaker 3: those Asian refiners is pretty much drying up around about now.

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Speaker 3: So the reality is that unless things change quite quickly,

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Speaker 3: something is going to have to be done, probably the

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Speaker 3: next two or three weeks. See you to start earlier

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Speaker 3: yet too.

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Speaker 1: Right, how do you rate the chances that we do

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Speaker 1: have some rationing in this country? Let's say out of

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Speaker 1: one hundred.

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Speaker 3: Oh, I think we'd probably like about a seventy five

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Speaker 3: percent chance, I would say, hither.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So then the sooner we start conserving, the better.

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Speaker 1: So working from home for everybody who can.

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Speaker 3: Well, that's an easy option, isn't it, Because the country,

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Speaker 3: or at least a decent part of the country, is

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Speaker 3: already set up to do that. We have some history

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Speaker 3: of doing that through the COVID period, we're able to

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Speaker 3: save quite a lot of fuel. With the hard lockdowns,

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Speaker 3: we're not going to save anything near that amount, but

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Speaker 3: it'll certainly help provide more fuel for the more higher

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Speaker 3: priority uses of it.

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Speaker 2: How much do you reckon it does save?

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Speaker 3: Well, I had the team work on this and the

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Speaker 3: carless days in the eighties. They reckon. They saved about

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Speaker 3: three point six percent sort of white fuel use. We

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Speaker 3: reckon on this occasion. You know, of say thirty percent

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Speaker 3: of people commuted one less day a week, then that

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Speaker 3: might save about five percent on fuel usage. So that

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Speaker 3: could actually stretch out those fifty eight days of petrol

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Speaker 3: maybe by two or three days. So that tells you

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Speaker 3: that for that one day thing, that does something, But

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Speaker 3: there's probably going to be other meuses required as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, how long I mean, I'm just going to ask

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Speaker 1: you how long you think this drags on for, But

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Speaker 1: it really depends on what happens in Iran, doesn't it.

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Speaker 1: The problem with the working from home thing, would you agree, Kelly,

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Speaker 1: is that this has become political, hasn't it? Like working

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Speaker 1: from home has become a political issue, So if you

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Speaker 1: don't like it, you're probably not going to want to

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Speaker 1: support it, even if it is for saving the oil.

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Speaker 3: Well, certainly there's been a big push by business to

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Speaker 3: try to get people back into the office, right, So

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Speaker 3: there's always that reluctance there. I think about about going backwards,

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Speaker 3: I suppose. I mean, there have possibly been perception of

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Speaker 3: some productivity issues. But in the end, you know, if

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Speaker 3: we find ourselves a bit short, if the boats slow

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Speaker 3: down in terms of the ones bringing fuel into the

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Speaker 3: country in the next few weeks, got to do something.

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Speaker 1: You'so right, Listen, you're seventy five percent chance of rationing.

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Speaker 1: When does the rationing kick in?

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean we've got decent visibility on the field

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Speaker 3: that's coming for the next couple of weeks because you

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Speaker 3: can actually see the boats on the ocean heading there.

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Speaker 3: So right now we're not in a position where we

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Speaker 3: have any less fuel than we usually have because the

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Speaker 3: tanks are basically always kept us fall and they get

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Speaker 3: topped up. But I guess what I would suspect is

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Speaker 3: that in April, the refiner the countries where the refineries

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Speaker 3: are basically going to make harder decisions. And I don't

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Speaker 3: think it'll be reasonable to expect they're going to say

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Speaker 3: that we can't have any but it might be very

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Speaker 3: reasonable that they say that perhaps we have to cut

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Speaker 3: off twenty five percent.

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Speaker 2: Okay, Kelly Listen, thanks very much for talking us through.

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Speaker 2: Kelli E. Cold, Westpac chief economist. For more from Hither

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Speaker 2: Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news talks they'd be

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Speaker 2: from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio