A future without oil

South Africa cannot pin its hope on a miracle to rescue it from the coming global oil crisis, and needs to take urgent and radical steps to avoid an “unprecedented” meltdown in the country’s economy and transport network.

All the signals point to a rapid and irreversible decline in world oil production within the next five to 10 years – and unless South Africa acts fast and intelligently, the country could be forced into taking draconian measures like petrol and diesel rationing, slashing speed limits on the highways or reserving fuel for essential services such as the police, army, ambulance services and farmers.


The warning does not come from a radical environmental group, but from a senior economics lecturer who has advised President Thabo Mbeki on the question of energy sector scenario-planning.

Jeremy Wakeford, until recently a senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town’s School of Economics and now an independent consultant and research director of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil – South Africa (ASPO-SA), says local policy-makers would be foolish to gamble on a major technological breakthrough in new transport fuels or energy efficiency, and should rather take urgent action to reconfigure the country’s economy towards a new era in which oil-based fuels become increasingly scarce and finally run out.

The Mercury (South Africa)