Strategies To Maintain Fuel Security In Palestine

Abstract

Fuel plays a key role in many aspects of life, particularly in any country’s national security. However, energy insecurity leads to economic and political instability. In this study, the researcher investigated the strategies used to maintain fuel security in Palestine in order to define the challenges facing Palestine’s fuel security, while exploring geopolitical variables and their impacts, investigate the territory’s fuel storage policies and find out the potentiality to build fuel security infrastructure. To achieve those purposes, the researcher used a combination of descriptive and comparative approaches. More specifically, the researcher compared the Palestinian circumstances with the circumstances of other countries in achieving fuel security in the short run. The data was collected, treated and analyzed in Palestine during 1994-2019 using non-structured interviews. The results showed that that there is no strategy for fuel security in Palestine, failure to adopt a fuel security strategy due to the absence of a healthy environment (political conditions), and building a fuel security strategy is directly linked to full independence and openness to foreign markets. As a result, the study proposed that there should be a well-defined fuel security strategy with clear objectives to achieve fuel security in case of emergency in the state of Palestine. In addition, the researcher recommended strengthening the procedures of the Palestinian Petroleum Authority and private companies to ensure the availability of fuel in the Palestinian markets, initiating the building of the infrastructure, and keeping continuous and diligent efforts and actions to compel the Israelis to abide by the agreements signed during the Oslo Accords, and coordinating with the private sector. This study is important for planners, policy makers, as it highlighted the fuel shortage crisis for future fuel security in Palestine.