With the US and Israel’s war on Iran unlikely to end soon, Australia’s lack of fuel security is worth a closer look.
This has been an ongoing managerial problem for years, led by the federal duopoly of Labor and the Liberal/Nationals coalition.
Think tank, the Australian Institute, says Australia has long failed to meet the International Energy Agency (IEA) requirement of holding 90 days of net imports, with stocks closer to about 50 days as of 2025.
We rely on imports for about 90 per cent of liquid fuels (petrol, diesel, jet fuel), according to another think tank, www.lowyinstitute.org.
Fossil fuels behind 98 per cent of Australia’s transport
And the Lowy Institute says fuel powers roughly 98 per cent of the transport sector, ‘making supply disruptions a major economic and national security risk’.
Iran has now closed the Strait of Hormuz, with threats it will ‘set fire’ to any ships trying to pass through.
The world’s busiest oil shipping channel provides one-fifth of the world’s seaborne crude oil supply (and other things too), yet funnily enough, this doesn’t impact the US, because they are energy self-reliant.
But it impacts us, because we rely on Asian refineries (primarily in Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia), and these refineries largely rely on crude oil from the Middle East.
Oil refineries have also been closing in Australia over the past decade, with only two still operational: the Ampol Lytton Refinery in Brisbane, and the Viva Energy Refinery in Geelong.
Refineries not only produce petrol, but diesel, LPG, jet fuel, avgas and low aromatic fuels.
According to the Brisbane refinery, it can process up to 109,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) and the Geelong refinery says it can process up to 120,000 bbl/d,
But that’s nowhere near enough – Australia consumes approximately 1.09 to 1.15 million bbl/d, as of 2024–25, according to www.worldometers.info.
With the recent vulnerability, the federal government have made some moves to ensure more oil security, such as the Fuel Security Package in 2020-21.
But is it enough? And why not accelerate other fuels and technologies?
While the Lowy Institute think tank believes we should build gas refineries, similar in scale to Qatar, independent organisation Climate Council (climatecouncil.org.au) argue that, ‘Now is the time to double down on policies to accelerate the renewable rollout and make the benefits of rooftop solar, storage and electrification more accessible’.
The electrification of homes, industry and transport is perhaps the only way to future-proof us from oil dependence.
Norway leads global electric vehicle (EV) adoption, with reuters.com reporting 95.9 per cent of all new cars registered in 2025 were EVs.
Why? Incentives and tax breaks were established in the 1990s.
It’s time for federal Labor to get cracking on it!
Hans Lovejoy, acting editor
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
