No issues with UK fuel supply, says Reeves

The UK is not facing an immediate shortage of petrol, diesel or jet fuel, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said on Thursday, at the end of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting in Washington.

The UK has "no issues with supply at the moment", she told the BBC.

Her comments came after the IMF advised countries to consider managing energy demand through measures such as subsidising public transport or working from home, to combat the crisis triggered by the conflict in the Middle East.

The chancellor also said she would be announcing changes to energy policy in the coming days, including over drilling in the North Sea and reforming the link between gas and electricity prices.

New data on Thursday showed that the UK economy grew more strongly in February than previously expected.

However, the figures reflect economic activity before the start of the US-Israel war with Iran, which has pushed up energy prices worldwide.

Many countries are already facing fuel shortages and introducing measures to reduce consumption.

The International Energy Agency said on Thursday that Europe had six weeks worth of jet fuel left before stocks would fall below a level where there were likely to be shortages and flight cancellations.

"We are monitoring the situation very carefully," Reeves told the BBC. But she added she was "confident" about the current supply of fuels.

The UK is a net exporter of petrol but imports other products including wholesale oil and gas.

A higher gas price is a particular problem for the UK as it generally determines the price of electricity, whether it was generated using gas or renewables.

"We do need to delink gas and electricity prices," Reeves said. "Because at the moment, on many occasions, electricity prices are based off the gas price, even though the costs of producing electricity, by and large, have not changed as a result of this conflict in the Middle East."

Reeves said she and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband would be making an announcement soon on that and on the next stage of extracting oil and gas in the North Sea.

"We are looking at what we can do to exploit more of our resources in the North Sea through tie-backs," she said, adding that more details would be available "in the next few days".

Tie-backs allow oil and gas from new discoveries to be channelled via existing production platforms, without building as much additional infrastructure.

She also welcomed what she said was "a strong start to the year" for the UK economy.

The latest GDP figures showed a growth rate of 0.5% for February and an upgrade to growth in January to 0.1%.

However, this week the IMF cut its estimate for UK growth for the year from 1.3% to 0.8%, warning it would be the hardest hit of the world's advanced economies, by the conflict.