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March 24, 2026 \u2014 7:00pm<\/p>\n
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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n Save this article for later<\/p>\n Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime.<\/p>\n Got it<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n The hazy CCTV footage didn\u2019t capture anything of use to the owners of Lane Transport, a trucking company in Killarney, western Victoria.<\/p>\n Just the headlights of a car entering the truck yard at 3.06am, illuminating a row of parked B-doubles.<\/p>\n The mystery driver had been in and out of the yard in 10 minutes, enough time to siphon off more than 100 litres of diesel from one of Lane\u2019s trucks. Police are investigating.<\/p>\n Noel Lane has run his transport company for decades and says this is the first case of fuel theft he has experienced.<\/p>\n \u201cDisappointed. We are in a small rural area where things like that don\u2019t happen,\u201d Lane said. \u201cThere\u2019s probably going to be more of it.\u201d<\/p>\n The price of diesel was about $3 a litre in Melbourne by Tuesday, while unleaded petrol was rising towards $2.50.<\/p>\n Related Article Instances of fuel theft are also rising by between 8 and 30 per cent, the national industry body for fuel distributors says, although Victoria Police said it has not observed a spike in service station drive-offs.<\/p>\n The number of service stations running out of fuel is also rising as demand surges. By Tuesday, 162 service stations across Victoria had run out of at least one type of fuel, compared with 289 in NSW, Australia\u2019s Energy Minister Chris Bowen said.<\/p>\n Service stations typically replenish their tanks every 24 to 48 hours, so one missed delivery can cause a station to run dry for a day or two, said Rowan Lee, the chief executive of the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association.<\/p>\n He said affected stations were generally running out of one type of fuel, not all.<\/p>\n \u201cEssentially, what we\u2019ve seen is a doubling of demand for fuel, which puts some pressure on supply chains,\u201d Lee said. <\/p>\n \u201cInitially, we had some panic buying, and we also had what you would probably call forward buying for some industrial and agricultural uses \u2026 Whether that\u2019s their concern that the price will keep rising and they want to get in and buy it at a certain price or whether they\u2019re worried about supplies, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n Lee said panic buying had \u201ceased off\u201d in recent days, and the association saw no case for fuel rationing.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ships are still coming in, though the market is tight, no doubt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n More concerningly, retailers had reported a rise in drive-offs at the bowser of between 8 and 30 per cent, Lee said.<\/p>\n Police said they were closely engaged with petrol industry stakeholders and encouraged retailers to promptly report petrol theft, so officers could begin investigating.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this stage, there are no notable trends of escalating petrol theft following recent price increases,\u201d a police spokesperson said. \u201cHowever, police will continue to monitor this situation.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a possibility of this leading to an increase in petrol drive-offs. However, the most common culprits are traditionally people committing other crimes such as driving stolen cars or displaying false plates.\u201d<\/p>\n Instances of theft have also been reported in other states. In South Australia, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens reportedly put the onus on service stations to improve their security by installing prepaid pumps.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have seen reports of this type of crime for years, or probably decades, and I know that I have been agitating for years to see something more proactive from the industry,\u201d he told the ABC<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you were foolish enough to leave your TV out the front of your house every single day, and have it stolen, there would come a point in time where we would say, \u2018We\u2019re not taking a report from you for that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Lee said the comments were \u201cunhelpful, and not sending the right signal to the community\u201d.<\/p>\n Noel Lane said he had already increased security in his truck yard following the March 9 theft.<\/p>\n Related Article His own fuel costs have almost doubled since late February, forcing him to apply a 15 per cent fuel surcharge to customers to keep his trucks on the road.<\/p>\n Lane said some of his drivers had experienced fuel shortages on the journey between Melbourne and western Victoria.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s been a bit of a rush,\u201d he said. \u201cPanic buying has caused a bit of grief.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone wanting so much is just like the old toilet paper [situation]. It\u2019s not that there was ever going to be a shortage \u2013 people just demand more than they can get out there.\u201d<\/p>\n Victorian Energy Minister Lily D\u2019Ambrosio told reporters that demand had increased anywhere between 300 and 400 per cent in some parts of the state. She said the surge in demand had exacerbated rising fuel prices.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cWhat has happened, of course, is that there has been this massive spike in demand in some parts of the state and indeed across the country, as people worry about fuel supplies over the coming weeks,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s also led, of course, to a massive increase in the price of those liquid fuels.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter Anderson is director of APCO, which operates 30 service stations in regional Victoria.<\/p>\n He said there had been no interruptions to supply at any of them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe panic buying is still about a little bit,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not having any problems with supply because I have a contract for supply from both Viva and Mobil, and they\u2019ve been terrific. People are having problems getting supply, but these are rats and mice of the industry that basically don\u2019t commit to the major oil companies that bring the product in.\u201d<\/p>\n Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"CCTV](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/e6ed0661aa09e326ce617e9df8c5269bc280f761.jpeg\")
CCTV footage captures an alleged thief who siphoned diesel from a truck yard in western Victoria.<\/p>\n![\"Petrol](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774360392_213_5502f6c20d9334a8d93cba0924ca7ac4727d0c26.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Petrol](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/b7e8291eec0c21029324d9c375df1a4b869ce020.jpeg\")
Petrol stations are temporarily running out of fuel amid a surge in demand.Janie Barrett<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/21262a005e8db4eabba7795ab87dce8fd721ab68bda823755d923d19692fa579.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Adam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768307726_770_7e21ff54d48d8efecb64eb5ec71560bc31781fde.png\")
Adam Carey<\/a> is senior city reporter (suburban). He has held previous roles including education editor, state political correspondent and transport reporter. He joined The Age in 2007.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 24, 2026 \u2014 7:00pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-561217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561217","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=561217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}