‘Europe has six weeks of jet fuel left’, top energy chief warns

Europe has “maybe six weeks or so [of] jet fuel left,” the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Thursday while warning of possible flight cancellations.

Speaking in a wide-ranging interview with the Associated Press, IEA executive director Fatih Birol said the continent was facing the “largest energy crisis we have ever faced”.

He said flight cancellations could come “soon” if oil pressures continue.

Fuel supplies have been under pressure since Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz – a vital shipping corridor where an estimated fifth of global supplies pass through – in response to US-Israeli military action, he explained.

“I can tell you soon we will hear the news that some of the flights from city A to city B might be cancelled as a result of lack of jet fuel,” he said.

The energy chief told the news service the fuel crisis is set to have “major implications for the global economy... And the longer it goes, the worse it will be for the economic growth and inflation around the world”.

IEA chief Fatih Birol said jet fuel shortages could disrupt flights. Photo: Shutterstock.

He warned of higher prices at the pump and increased gas and electricity prices.

And while fears of higher energy prices continue to mount in leading economies, Birol warned the economic impacts of the crisis will not be evenly felt, and that “the countries who will suffer the most will not be those whose voices are heard a lot”.

Poorer countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America are set to bear the brunt of economic shocks, he said.

“Some countries may be richer than the others. Some countries may have more energy than the others, but no country, no country is immune to this crisis”.

Birol is a Turkish economist and energy specialist who has led the IEA since 2015.