Over 100 service stations across Victoria ran out of petrol on Tuesday, with 83 also reporting diesel shortages, the state’s energy minister confirmed.
Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said shortages affected both metropolitan and regional stations, though the overall fuel supply chain remained unaffected. She attributed the outages to a rush of consumers purchasing fuel across the state.
“The fuels coming into the country, they’re still flowing into the country,” Ms D’Ambrosio told ABC Melbourne radio.
“In some areas of Victoria – not widespread – but in some areas of Victoria, demand has increased by anywhere between 300 and 400 percent.”
The Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association (ACAPMA), a fuel industry body, said the number of outages had fallen to 61 sites by midday Tuesday.
Ms D’Ambrosio said the shortages were evenly split between regional and metropolitan areas, with many service stations completely out of all petrol types.
“It’s that they have no petrol … none,” she said.
“Most of these areas do have alternatives, and this is really important for communities, they need to be confident that there are alternative service stations providing the fuel.”
The war in the Middle East has caused fuel prices to fluctuate sharply as the situation evolves, though Australia has yet to experience significant supply shock effects from the conflict.
Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen last week warned Australians against panic-buying fuel, assuring that ample supplies remained available.
The federal government’s newly established National Liquid Fuel Task Force will meet today for the first time to discuss potential supply issues.
Ms D’Ambrosio described the shortages in Victoria as “temporary outages”.
“We know, from just the experience of recent days, that these outages, most of them are short-term and they get refuelled very, very readily,” she said.
“Whether they are persistent outages is something that I’ll be sitting down with the fuel distributors to get a sense of from them.”
