Far-flung
Pacific nations are reeling from the impact of a global fuel crisis as authorities scramble to manage energy supplies while families must grapple with fuel curbs and higher costs for food and access to healthcare.
Global oil supplies are running down as the US-Israeli war with Iran disrupts traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which typically carries about 20 per cent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows.
Aid agencies have warned that the crisis has driven up prices for diesel, petrol and kerosene by as much as 70 per cent in Papua New Guinea since the start of the Iran war.
“Many of our communities, because they rely on boat transport for movement are … having challenges bringing food supplies to outlying centres,” said Godfrey Bongomin, programme operations director for World Vision in Papua New Guinea.
With transport to clinics now out of reach financially for some, people were skipping medical appointments and missing life-saving HIV and tuberculosis medicines, he said. “It is affecting their livelihoods.”
Pacific Island nations are the most reliant on diesel for power generation worldwide, the International Finance Corp said in 2024. Data from Zero Carbon Analytics showed it fuelled more than half of electricity output in 2022, except for Fiji.