Trucks are lining up in their hundreds at three stations in Chengdu, China, in the hopes of getting 40 litres of fuel each. In this city of 10 million, only those three are still selling diesel. This may be an economics-induced dress rehearsal of the reality that will face the rest of the world in the post-peak oil universe.

I am currently living in China and I hear the Chinese media speaking about diesel shortages, but the message they prefer to deliver is“take the shortages with a grain of salt”. International media are also covering the story of limited supplies, but what I have still not seen covered is the effect of limited diesel supplies on the economy and the population as a whole.


The story goes something like this: Inflation is out of control at 6.5 per cent and prices of everything have at least doubled in the last year and a half. Wages remain almost stagnant with no upward rise to match the inflation rate. Five years ago, when China’s economic boom started, dreams were alive in the air: a new car, a new apartment and a better life filled with possessions if you came to the cities and worked real hard. That is exactly what happened, a flood of workers came to man the factories, build new skyscrapers, and fill offices by the hundreds of millions.

The carrot dangled in front of 1.3 billion people was simple: come, work and be rewarded. That was then, this is now. The dream is dying on the vine. A majority of Chinese citizens now realize that car ownership will not occur for them, same goes for the apartment. Property values are skyrocketing, from 2500 yuan for a square metre in 2003, to 10,000 yuan for a square metre in today’s high-rises.