Push for city fuel rationing to keep regions motoring
Australian fuel transport companies are backing a push for fuel rationing in cities to provide fuel reserves for regional areas as businesses run dry.
The federal government said on Friday it would release up to 762 million liters of gasoline and diesel from companies’ emergency reserves to address shortages in regional areas.
Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest oil corridors, in response to the US-led war against it, causing a global shortage that sent fuel prices soaring.
Westlink Petroleum general manager Danny Kreutzer, whose Queensland-based company carries fuel to 500 businesses, said the fuel should already be earmarked for the regions.
“We have a lot of angry customers who want their fuel,” he told AAP.
“Most of them have been very good at dealing with and understanding our situation.
“For all fuel distributors in the country, we’re all the same. This has really impacted our business because we’re not getting the volume we need on a normal day.”
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has raised the possibility of fuel rationing in cities to help solve supply problems.
“This is a crisis,” he told ABC Radio on Friday.
Mr Joyce said trucks needed to be kept moving to ensure food remained on supermarket shelves and other vital infrastructure could be maintained.
Conflicts in the Middle East have made the situation unstable, Mr. Kreutzer said, where oil companies and wholesalers don’t know how much to charge his business for fuel because “they don’t know whether they’re making money or losing money.”
The consumer watchdog has told fuel retailers to respond to claims they significantly increased petrol and diesel prices just after the start of war in the Middle East.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen has repeatedly assured Australia’s federal parliament that it has enough fuel.
He said panicked drivers were behind the supply problems and rising prices.
Mr Bowen and motoring associations are imploring people to stop hoarding fuel and labeling behavior that seeks to capitalize on the situation as “un-Australian”.
Australia has relaxed quality standards for the next 60 days in a bid to stimulate the domestic market.
The minister rejected Mr Joyce’s proposal to ration fuel in metropolitan areas.
Opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan accused Mr Bowen of taking temporary measures in response to supply and price squeezes.
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