Sustainable Transport Coalition

Australias oil vulnerability is shown in these diagrams of past Australian and world oil production and future decline predictions. The lowest diagram illustrates one scenario of strategies and adaptations matching the predicted growing gulf between unconstrained demand for petroleum and shrinking supply. Details are in the following text. As a result of declining domestic production and uncertain world supplies, WA is very vulnerable to "Oil Shocks " in the short term (2 months), medium term (2 years) and long term (within 2 decades). Australias Oil Vulnerability. WA Beyond Oil Bruce Robinson 2 There is a great deal that can be done to prepare for the likelihood of future oil shocks and hence to ameliorate the effects when (or if) they hit us. Many possible precautions will be "no-regrets " options already justified on equity, environment, health or economic grounds. WA's existing supplies of domestic gas and petroleum coupled with local understanding of oil vulnerability and demand management provide an encouraging opportunity for the state to both forecast and to weather the coming storms better than many other regions. It is particularly important that the issues be tackled seriously and urgently. Perhaps the most compelling (but still largely unrecognised) evidence of the lack of even short-term sustainability in WA is our very serious dependence on rapidly declining petroleum sources. Petroleum is currently essential for transport, agriculture and most facets of WA's community and economic life. Most people have assumed, wrongly, that medium and short-term supplies are assured. Australian oil production decline Australia has been shielded from past oil shocks by our domestic oil production from Bass Strait. However, Bass Strait production has been declining since 1985 and until now other fields have filled the production gap. Reliable recent predictions by GeoScience Australia (previously the Australian Geological Survey Organisation) and Woodside indicate that Australia's oil and condensate production will fall substantially in the next decade. This is shown in Figures 1a and 1b