Another 100 million litres of diesel has been secured for Australia from Ampol using new taxpayer backed financing measures, with the Government announcing that 50 million litres will be diverted to regional Queensland communities.
The latest delivery represents roughly one day’s additional supply for Australia and follows similar announcements over the past week, with the Government saying the country’s reserves are now higher than when the Iran war began.
Over the past week the Albanese government has secured about 400 million litres of additional diesel supply, with about 50 million litres of that fuel being sent to the Queensland towns of Townsville, Gladstone, and Mackay in the state’s north.
Trade Minister Don Farrell said the deals were a direct result of new powers introduced by the federal government shortly after the outbreak of war in the Middle East, which enables Export Finance Australia to work with the government to make spot-market purchases of fuel.
“Through these early actions and the additional shipments that are expected to arrive in the coming weeks, we are securing supplies that are essential for our industries to keep moving in the face of the continued conflict in the Middle East,” Senator Farrell said.
It comes after Western Australia added 8 million litres of diesel to the State’s reserves after Rio Tinto agreed to relinquish the fuel.
Premier Roger Cook and Energy Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson announced the boost, which will bring WA’s stockpile up to 12 million litres, on Thursday.
The diesel from supplier Viva Energy will be added to the State’s stockpile and sold into areas of “acute need”, mainly regional areas and agricultural users in the Wheatbelt and Great Southern areas.
“It won’t cost the taxpayer, because we will on-sell that fuel at times when it is needed most into the market. This isn’t fuel that’s going to be given, this is fuel that will be made available to the market,” Ms Sanderson said.
“This is fuel that would have gone into storage tanks and mining operations. So this is actually additional fuel on top of the fuel that the Prime Minister and the Federal Minister is procuring on behalf of the nation. It’s additional fuel that the industry doesn’t need, and it’s additional to the fuel … that comes through supply.”
She described it as a lifeline for those communities.
“We are a vast state. We have a number of priority regional communities and priority industries that need access to fuel quickly and efficiently when we have supply and distribution disruptions,” she said.
