Australia's fuel crisis did not end with Easter. It deepened.[1]

As of Monday, 410 service stations across the country were without diesel and 145 were without unleaded petrol. The numbers represent a refinement of the 555-station figure reported last week, but the trend is not improving — it is shifting. Diesel shortages are concentrated in rural and regional areas, where trucks carry food, medicine and freight. Unleaded shortages are concentrated in New South Wales, where 145 of the 145 dry stations are located.[3]

Energy Minister Chris Bowen told the ABC that "billions of litres of fuel are en route" to Australia. He did not say when they would arrive. He did not say how many billions. He said the government was "working around the clock" — the phrase politicians use when they have no timeline to offer.[2]

The Caps

Self-imposed purchase caps remain in effect at stations that still have fuel. Most are limiting customers to 50 liters per transaction. Some have gone lower. The Australian government's emergency plan includes a provision for a $40 fuel cap — roughly 16 liters of petrol — which would be the most restrictive fuel rationing measure in the country's peacetime history.[4]

Bowen is also considering caps on gas and coal prices, a move that would extend the fuel crisis from the pump to the power grid. Australia generates roughly 60 percent of its electricity from coal. If coal prices spike, electricity prices follow. If electricity prices spike, the fuel crisis becomes an energy crisis.

The Excise Cut

The government halved the fuel excise tax on March 30, a move that Roy Morgan polling shows is backed by most Australians. But the excise cut addresses affordability, not availability. It makes fuel cheaper for the people who can find it. It does nothing for the people who cannot.[6]

The excise cut also costs the government roughly $3 billion in revenue over six months. That is money that will not be available for other emergency responses — disaster relief, healthcare, defense. The fuel crisis is consuming the budget.[5]

The War Connection

Australia's fuel crisis is a direct consequence of the Iran war. The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 30 percent of the world's seaborne oil passes, has been effectively closed since mid-March. Australia imports 98 percent of its refined petroleum products. When Hormuz closes, Australia's fuel supply shrinks.

The country has 39 days of petrol reserves, 29 days of diesel and 30 days of jet fuel. Those numbers sound adequate until you consider that reserves are not distributed evenly — they are held in strategic locations that may not align with where the shortages are worst.[7]

The Human Cost

In rural Queensland, farmers are reporting that they cannot irrigate their crops because diesel is unavailable. In New South Wales, trucking companies are refusing long-haul routes because they cannot guarantee fuel at the destination. In Victoria, ambulance services are monitoring their fuel levels daily.

The fuel crisis is not an abstraction. It is a truck that cannot deliver. It is a farmer who cannot irrigate. It is an ambulance that cannot respond.

And it is getting worse.

-- DARA OSEI, London