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Ryan Bridge: The oil price danger zone for inflation · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The most common question I'm getting asked at the moment
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: is with the Middle East, when does it start to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: affect us here in New Zealand. And I'm talking about
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: their economy. If it's still going in two or three weeks,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: then lots of countries, including ours, will start to feel
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  Speaker 1: the pinch. This is not my words, this is the economist.
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  Speaker 1: So we have about two or three weeks of stocks
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  Speaker 1: of oil in New Zealand. I know it's not a
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  Speaker 1: hell of a lot, is it, Although that's more than
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: what we did have. This government actually changed the requirement.
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  Speaker 1: Brent crude futures topped out at eighty five dollars a
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  Speaker 1: barrel overnight. That's the highest it's been in about eighteen months.
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  Speaker 1: JP Morgan. As I mentioned earlier, they say we could
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  Speaker 1: hit one hundred and twenty. The Iraqis are now pulling
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: back on their production refineries in Asia Overnight, they, according
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to Bloomberg, thinking about cutting production by twenty or thirty
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: percent because of the humus log jam. You've got tankers
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: backed up, unable to port all this stuff means delays.
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  Speaker 1: And our economy runs on oil and gas, it runs
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  Speaker 1: on fossil fuels. It's a common misconception that we don't
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  Speaker 1: in New Zealand because we narrate so much renewable energy.
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  Speaker 1: But that's generation eighty percent all thereabouts. People often think
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  Speaker 1: that's the same as use. In fact, about sixty percent
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  Speaker 1: of our energy supply, of what we use day to day,
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  Speaker 1: comes from fossil fuels. Did you know that? Kelly Echold
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  Speaker 1: from Westpac told me yesterday it's likely petrol prices will
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  Speaker 1: go up for us as of yesterday. He estimated eight
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  Speaker 1: cents a liter at the pump within a week or two. Now,
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  Speaker 1: oil prices at the moment are actually, by comparison to
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  Speaker 1: recent years, quite low. But your one hundred to one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty dollars barrel forecast is key. That's the
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  Speaker 1: point at which our inflation forecasts would have to change,
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  Speaker 1: he reckons. And we know what that means, don't we?
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  Speaker 1: Price is going up. Think about how much of what
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  Speaker 1: you do in a day driving a car, using a
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  Speaker 1: plastic pen, powering your business trucks, getting food to supermarkets.
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  Speaker 1: Think about how much that uses oil. We're dependent And
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  Speaker 1: once you get those prices going up, you get general
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: prices going up, and then you get the reserve banks
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  Speaker 1: back up, and then what is this the event the
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  Speaker 1: hell that our recovery dies on. Please don't freak out,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: don't freak out. We're not there yet. We're not there yet.
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  Speaker 1: National certainly will be hoping not. But the ingredients are there,
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  Speaker 1: and the language you have to say coming out of
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  Speaker 1: the White House over the last twenty four hours isn't
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  Speaker 1: exactly helping to allay our fears, is it. For more
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to News
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Talks it be from five am weekdays, or follow the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: podcast on iHeartRadio.