Friday 24 September 2010

Liberal Democrat Conference: 'Oil price could double in return to 1970s style shocks'

The Telegraph reports:

Energy secretary Chris Huhne has ordered his officials to look at the impact of a 1970s-style oil price spike on the British economy. Mr Huhne said the UK was having to prepare itself for “lots of shocks”, forcing the price of a barrel of oil to double, mirroring the volatility last seen in the 1970s.
...

A 1970s-style doubling in the price of oil would drain £45billion from the UK economy in two years, hitting investment and jobs. He told a meeting on the fringe of the party’s conference in Liverpool: “We will have a world where there may be lots of shocks, we may well have oil price rises which are similar to the ones that we had in the 1970s, a doubling. I have asked for some work to be done in the department about what the impact of that might be in terms of British business, businesses that have nothing to do with energy, with green growth, entirely outside."
Could it be that the UK government has finally woken up and realised there's a problem with oil supply?

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