It's puzzling that many are pointing to consumer hoarding as being the cause of the current shortages. No government, even our present one would be stupid enough not to take consumer behaviour into account when planning how to deal with supply shortages. Look at the root cause .... 80+% of Asia Pacific consumption (crude and refined) normally comes through Hormuz. With so much less available, something has to break.

Australia is the standout nation in the developed world for its low reserves, so is it any wonder people dependent on fuel for their livelihoods are getting nervous. Anyone with any business sense would be looking at risk management. If the impact is severe, then mitigation action MUST be taken. Think of the farmer who runs out of fuel and as a result loses their income. A prudent farmer MUST mitigate that risk, so storing as much as they can is the first. The same for all industry and those who are reliant on fuel to survive.

Surely this highlights why we need to build more storage infrastructure, and perhaps rebuild our refining capability. Of course it costs and that will need to be passed on, but virtually every other country recognises that, with their 90-200 days' storage. Australia is more remote than most, with huge distances, and heavily dependent on fuel for industry. So why should Australia be the standout with the lowest fuel reserves. No wonder there is hoarding. Time to manage the risk so we are better prepared for the next crisis. Thinking it will never happen is foolish. The next may be much worse. What will happen if China invades Taiwan (as stated they intend) and our usual suppliers can't ship to us at all?

-- Edited by Are We Lost on Monday 30th of March 2026 01:02:39 PM

Does not matter how you look at it....
Litres of Diesel/oil per ton of freight per 100km:
Semi trailer .... 1.2 - 2.3L
Rail.................0.23 - 0 28L
Ship ...............0.03L

If you then add the road repairs and the labour to drive this transport, trucks are a very poor choice.
Cheers,
Peter

A bit of a pity this thread has gotten so far from the influence of the current fuel situation, both price and availability. Reading through I have found some ridiculous claims such as fuel going up in price by 300%. Pure nonsense. Diesel has got from $1.80 to $3.25/litre at my local outlet and at the always expensive Kulgera Roadhouse it's $4/litre. The only time I would buy fuel there is if I went out to Ayres Rock.It's around $3.40 in most larger towns like Alice Springs.
I speak for no-one other than myself, but our trips are generally for about 6 months over winter with most driving done in long trips there and back with minimal driving once settled in somewhere. I even carry an electric fat bike for fishing and short shopping trips etc. Consequently we do about 10,000km/year. Less than most people driving to work and back.
While the large increase in price for the trip north is scary, though not entirely unmanageable, it is the chance of rationing and being stuck up north in the 'silly season' that is of greatest concern to me. Covid all over again. The longer this goes on the more likely that is looking.
Saw a bit on TV about a grey Nomad couple from Queensland who left shortly before all this started who have decided to sit it out up near Port Augusta somewhere I think it was.
Can't afford to keep going on their trip. Can't afford to go home.
I would REALLY like to hear more from people like that here rather than Political posturing. Not what this forum is for. In my humble opinion there is one person to blame for this situation and one person only. It has little to do with how our Govt deals with it.
The thing of interest to me is how WE deal with it as Grey Nomads. The sharing of personal experiences and tips for survival on the road.

Responding to Peter's comment about the fuel consumption of different freight transport methods ....

The triple handling is very costly. If you want to send something between two cities it needs to be trucked to a rail terminal, then loaded to the train. At the other end of the train journey the reverse applies for unloading. So it needs to be handled 4 times vs twice. That costs and adds delays. But worse the rail network probably entails much greater distances when the supplier and receiver are not close to the terminals.

When a supplier is focused on keeping costs down, just looking at quantity of fuel used is not much of an indicator.

Stevejaz wrote:

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....  I have found some ridiculous claims such as fuel going up in price by 300%. Pure nonsense. 

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I believe you are probably right. So far it has gone up close to 100%. So 300% would be a huge stretch.

Today's announcement of halving the excise is a good move. This is on top of the government now protecting our importers if they buy at a high price and then prices drop. But even with the exise cut the international prices are still going up. So any drop in pump prices is likely to be shortlived.

-- Edited by Are We Lost on Monday 30th of March 2026 03:16:22 PM

Dear Stevejaz.

The problem is all-encompassing.
It affects all of us, and will continue to impact for weeks/months/years as the situation evolves.

My butcher mate rang me about a few work issues, he just copped a 60% freight increase on some of his goods.
He was in the process of changing his prices to reflect the additional cost of landing his product.

You are quite right with your fears of being stranded somewhere if the situation gets out of hand or smaller remote independents just shut their doors as the supply gets short(er) or they are simply priced out of the market.

Have been doing calculations for an impending trip I have with accommodation already booked and paid for.
I feel your pain.
Like Bigger Boat, I too have cancelled trips, driven slower and used my petrol vehicle instead of the ute to conserve my full tank in the ute to tow the van.

It is a worry and is affecting all of us in different ways.
The inflationary cost from this is a big worry and the risk of Stagflation hitting us is real and scary.

The world sure is a mess since a group of terrorists decided cross a border and r*pe, kidnap and murder innocent people.
It has really gone downhill from there and doesn't look like improving overnight.

The only ones in this country with any power to alleviate the pain are the pollies.
They have improved a bit today but it still remains to be seen if the savings will be passed on or if the greedy fuel barons will just laugh and pocket the difference?

Time will tell.......

I think my answer in the short term is go buy some silverbeet seedlings and put them in the garden for winter greens. Sit it out for a while and spend a fortune on heating bills for the winter instead. Wonder if that will work out much cheaper. But still at least if I'm stranded I'm stranded at home.

Cheers. I had a 'back paddock' many years ago but these days a pensioner flat. Had silverbeet self sowing for years but it failed this year. Was actually thinking about seeds rather than seedlings. Save the trip to Bunnings.One thing I found with the self sown ones. They did not take well to being replanted. Start in small pots I guess. Actually one tip for Grey nomads might be a supply of mustard and cress seeds. The sort of thing you can grow and harvest quickly if stranded somewhere. That and bean sprouts.

I think we have fared pretty well given the events of the last few days. We, as a country, have immense wealth and our exports, particularly LNG, gives us a fair amount of leverage.

I think we were particularly lucky that our government repaired the previous damage done by us in Asia and having a foreign minister of Chinese/Malay descent is certainly no hindrance when it comes to diplomatically dealing with Asian countries.

If the reporting is correct, Malaysia and Japan have guaranteed supply in the short term and even China is willing to assist. We will have fuel as long as they have it.  Obviously it is in their commercial interests to do so, but they could have made it quite painful but chose not to.

Perhaps the greatest boost and the best ringing endorsement of our country as a respected middle power was the orange moron singling us out for abuse for being of no assistance. If I was prime minister I would ask him (politely) if he could say that again a few more times just to be certain that the whole world is clear where we stand in relation to humanity and peaceful resolutions.

The big news was Chrisafulli announcing today Qld were keen to commence production of 17 billion barrels in South West Qld.
The oil is sitting there - get it out. ASAP.

He needs approval from the Federal Government to do so.
This will be a real litmus test now for those pulling the strings.

There will be a lot of tradies, truckies, farmers and all those who rely so heavily on fuel ropeable if that reserve gets left in the ground.

Cheap oil, cheap transport, massive number of jobs.

This one will be an interesting watch.

DMaxer wrote:

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.... even China is willing to assist. 

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 DMaxer you have been drinking too much of the Kool-Aid. As Ineeda pointed out, China is tough to deal with and hardly on our side. If they were going to help, what pound of flesh would they want in return?

China began stockpiling crude 6 months beforehand, driving up prices as a result. Yet despite massive reserves, purchased at much lower prices, they closed shop and stopped 6 tanker loads of fuel bound for Australia. If Australia had any reasonable storage facilities we could have been stockpiling as well. Our 32 days of usage puts us at the very bottom of 60 countries in the developed world. Yet we are more remote than most and very highly dependent on fuel for mining, power and our long distances. We should be near the top of the list.

So when the shortages began we had to urgently do whatever was necessary to keep the fuel flowing. The budgeted cost of the excess reduction is $2.5B over the next 3 months. In addition the government has underwritten the importers against loss if the price falls while a shipment is in transit. So the fuel companies don't lose .... only the end users and the Australian economy. Since the ceasefire plan has been announced, the prices have tumbled overnight, and that underwriting has kicked in. We have been paying top dollar for fuel to avoid running out while other countries have deeper reserves to access and soften the blow.

If we had maintained that Texas storage facility (for crude) we could have been stockpiling at cheap prices as China did. Even if it was 6 or more weeks away, at least we would still have supply at cheaper prices. But that was established as a temporary measure while we expanded local facilities. Labor has rejected ideas to do anything meaningful to improve our limited storage capabilities. At 32 days usage there is little extra storage capacity.

The biggest concern for Australia is what happens if the next conflict disrupts shipments throughout Asia Pacific. (e.g. China/Taiwan). We need to be self sufficient .... bring back refining and grow our local storage. Risk management says if a scenario would have catastrophic impact, no matter how unlikely, the risk needs to be mitigated no matter what the cost.

A question for DMaxer

What justification is there for the Albanese government to reject the push to increase our local reserves to the 90 days usage agreed by IEA of which we are a member? Similar for Europe making around 60 countries combined with the same 90 days guideline, except for those able to support themselves with enough refining capability.  

-- Edited by Are We Lost on Wednesday 8th of April 2026 01:40:48 PM

If you check your dates Ineeda, the coalition with the man of many ministries were the ones that caused the unrest with China that led to the increase in tariffs. The present government did not come into office until May 2022. It took a fair bit of diplomacy to try and resurrect all the markets we lost because of that cretin. They have wound some of it back it but that is something you will never admit. Just pose this question to yourself. In the present unrest would you rather have our present government with the PM and Senator Wong looking after diplomacy or would you rather have the man of ministries or perhaps potato head with the town drunk as the deputy PM and the lovely and eloquent Michaelia Cash, the present shadow foreign minister, talking to our biggest trading partner and the rest of Asia.

In response to AWL, Australia was supposed to meet the IEA standards of 90 days ever since 2012. We have failed to meet it. We usually hold about 30-40 days of fuel in reserve and governments since then have gone along with it. One of the major issues is that the fuel reserve is not held by the government of the day but stored by private contractors. To build the infrastructure needed to store 90 days of fuel reserve is estimated to cost upwards of 20 billion dollars. Governments up until now have decided that it was more cost effective to rely on overseas supplies being met. We did have 90 million dollars worth stored in Texas but Angus sold that for a quick buck back in 2022.

I guess the present government will decide whether they save the 20 billion and rely on our leverage to secure fuel or build it. One of the issues however is that Australia is a vast continent and 90 days worth of fuel is an enormous amount. If you have a country the size of New Zealand with a small population and less motor vehicles, our 30 days supply would probably be 300 days to them. Vice versa, some countries' 90 day supply would equate to our 30 days or even less if just storage capacity needed was taken into account. 

Taroom Trough is not the answer. That is crude oil and we still need to send it offshore to be refined. Our fuel does not come from the Straits of Hormuz. Funnily enough, more than 80 tankers a day were going through those straits and had been for decades before the current hostilities. There have never been any pirates that I know of.

A television interview with an Australian who used to skipper ships through the Strait of Hormuz spoke on TV of pirates about 2 weeks ago.
His name escapes me, it was similar to a known place name???

He stated the Iranian pirates would give chase to the tankers and try and board them.
Also he never spoke on the radio via those stuffed up countries as an Australian accent for a hostage was nearly as good as holding an American.

I think Crisofulli mentioned building another refinery near Roma for the local oil. More jobs.
Don't think 25% of our needs would be a trifling.

I am sure our NSW farmers would love their diesel trucked in or by the new rail system thru the Central West and Northern NSW.
It must cost a squillion to transport our fuel from every dog kennel in the world by ships with massive insurance policy's????

BBN2 wrote:

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Just in this thread:

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man of many ministries
potato head
the town drunk
the onion eater
orange moron
prince knighter
little Johnnie
that dope Angus Taylor
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It's like reading the rantings of a ten year old with anger management issues.

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 Just the usual woke ranting. The kind that the Webmaster closes.

DMaxer wrote:

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Our fuel does not come from the Straits of Hormuz. 

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That is a bit like saying "Our food does not come from a farmer".

Of course it does. For oil, we are dependent on our suppliers being able to get crude through Hormuz. If they can't get oil to refine, they can't produce the fuel we need. While I agree that we don't have the refining capacity for it, we would at least have more crude to supply to the refiners. Problem solved, although local refining capacity would be more secure.

You would have a lot more credibility if you took note of the critiscisms about acting like a 10 year old. Can we move on without such immaturity.

-- Edited by Are We Lost on Wednesday 8th of April 2026 04:45:25 PM