{"id":539746,"date":"2026-03-14T10:28:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T10:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/539746\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T10:28:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T10:28:16","slug":"will-the-pumps-run-dry-how-the-war-in-iran-is-impacting-australias-oil-supply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/539746\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the pumps run dry? How the war in Iran is impacting Australia’s oil supply"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today Energy Minister Chris Bowen said fuel reserves were “steady compared to last week”.<\/p>\n

“Australia continues to receive expected fuel imports,” he said.<\/p>\n

“\ufeffBut we’ve seen unacceptable shortages in some rural and regional areas \u2014 and the Government has acted.”<\/p>\n

\"CarsCars lining up outside a petrol station in Mascot, Sydney. (Louie Douvis)Independent economist Saul Eslake told nine.com.au<\/a> Australia probably won’t run out of petrol.<\/p>\n

But the circumstances are different from the Gulf Wars or the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which also caused prices to spike.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think it will. But the probability is not zero,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s higher than it was in 2022, in 2004 and 1991.”<\/p>\n

Most of Australia’s fuel comes into the country already refined, practically none of it directly from the Persian Gulf region<\/a>.South Korea<\/a> sold us $12.75 billion of petrol (including diesel). Another $8.5 billion came from Singapore<\/a>.More refined petroleum came from Malaysia<\/a>, India<\/a>, Taiwan<\/a>, China<\/a>, Brunei and Japan<\/a>. Only a few hundred million dollars worth came from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and even less from Oman.<\/p>\n

But where those refiners get their oil from might worry Australians looking to fill up.<\/p>\n

\"MuchMuch of Australia’s petrol is bought in refined form from South Korea. (Adobe Stock)<\/p>\n

Most of the oil South Korea refines for sale to Australia comes from the Middle East.<\/p>\n

That includes Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman.<\/p>\n

More than a third of Singapore’s oil is sourced from Arab nations.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Australia imported $7 billion of crude oil.<\/p>\n

But very little of that is coming from the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

The largest chunk of oil comes from Malaysia, based on 2024 data. More comes from Vietnam, Brunei and the United States.<\/p>\n

Only six per cent comes from the UAE. No other Arab states sold oil directly to Australia that year.<\/p>\n

Australia also exports almost as much crude oil as it imports.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn oil tanker going through the Strait of Hormuz. (Adobe Stock)<\/p>\n

AMP economist My Bui said she wasn’t too worried about Australia running out of petrol.<\/p>\n

“We export a lot of crude oil, and we have to import a lot of our refined petrol from Asia,” she said.<\/p>\n

“But in terms of energy, we are actually a net energy exporter because of LNG and coal.”<\/p>\n

Eslake flagged another potential concern for Australia’s fuel supply.<\/p>\n

A large proportion of Australia’s strategic reserve isn’t kept domestically, but in the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“If that reserve is needed by the United States, they’ll take it,” Eslake said.<\/p>\n

“One of the other hallmarks of the Trump administration is that they don’t give a rat’s ass about their traditional allies.”<\/p>\n

\"BlackBlack oil pump jacks in the desert of Bahrain. (Getty Images\/iStockphoto)<\/p>\n

Simply halting those exports to guarantee local supply wouldn’t necessarily solve the problem.<\/p>\n

Australia exports its crude oil and imports refined oil because it’s cheaper to do so.<\/p>\n

Australia does not have the capacity to refine all the oil it needs into diesel and petrol. Upping our refining capacity would lead to even higher prices at the pumps.<\/p>\n

But having enough petrol in the country won’t necessarily mean prices will go down.<\/p>\n

Because of the global market, a barrel of oil in the Middle East will sell for the same price as one in Australia.<\/p>\n

NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today Energy Minister Chris Bowen said fuel reserves were “steady compared to last week”. “Australia continues to receive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-539746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}