Motorists are being reassured Australia will not be cut off from its biggest fuel supplier, even if conflict in the Middle East escalates and stocks worsen.<\/p>\n
Australia has locked in a supply deal with Singapore, one of the country\u2019s largest providers of fuel, but the opposition has urged for the government to not be reliant on exports for petrol and diesel.<\/p>\n
Singapore had no plans to reduce exports, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said alongside Anthony Albanese at a joint press conference on Friday.<\/p>\n
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By continuing you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t have to do so even in the darkest days of COVID, and we will not do so during this energy crisis,\u201d Mr Wong told reporters in Singapore.<\/p>\n More than a quarter of all fuel imported into Australia comes from Singapore and Australia provides about one-third of the city-state\u2019s LNG supply.<\/p>\n Mr Albanese and Mr Wong inked an agreement to continue trading large amounts of fuel and gas between the two nations.<\/p>\n The deal stated the countries would \u201cmake maximum efforts to meet each other\u2019s energy security needs\u201d at a time when fuel prices have surged and many service stations face shortages as the Strait of Hormuz remains shut.<\/p>\n It did not include any specific guarantee Australia would be at the front of the queue in the event Singapore\u2019s refineries kept reducing output.<\/p>\n But Mr Wong shut down a question on whether Australia would be prioritised if exports had to be reduced if the energy crisis worsened.<\/p>\n \u201cIt won\u2019t happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The blunt response prompted Mr Albanese to quip: \u201cThe prime minister is just as confident in private as he is in public.\u201d<\/p>\n Nationals leader Matt Canavan said a crisis response was needed to address the fuel crisis, adding Australia should not be reliant on other nations and instead look to domestic solutions.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope the government\u2019s successful there, but we also clearly need to do more,\u201d he told ABC TV.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy do we have to go cap in hand with Singapore, when we have a whole continent available to ourselves here that\u2019s got plenty of oil and gas available?\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Albanese said the relationship between Singapore and Australia meant they could avoid the worst of the fuel crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cThe best way to deal with this global crisis is indeed to work together as partners and as neighbours, and I look forward to continuing to engage with the prime minister,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Earlier on Friday, Mr Albanese toured an oil refinery and a liquefied natural gas terminal on Jurong Island, off Singapore\u2019s southwest coast.<\/p>\n Both leaders also called for the strait, where one-fifth of the world\u2019s oil supply flows through, to reopen.<\/p>\n Mr Albanese will return to Australia on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Motorists are being reassured Australia will not be cut off from its biggest fuel supplier, even if conflict…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,84],"class_list":["post-598832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598832","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=598832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}