Australia\u2019s fuel reserves would be more than doubled to 60 days under a coalition plan to strengthen the nation\u2019s supply chains in the face of a global crisis.<\/p>\n
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor and Nationals leader Matt Canavan will on Tuesday announce their bid to bolster fuel security.<\/p>\n
The proposal includes setting up an $800 million facility to deliver at least one billion litres of new onshore storage, with a focus on diesel.<\/p>\n
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By continuing you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n The plan could be adopted by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese \u201cwithout delay\u201d because Australia would cease to operate if it ran out of fuel, Mr Taylor said.<\/p>\n \u201cMore fuel in reserve, more storage on the ground, and a country that can stand on its own two feet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is about protecting Australians\u2019 way of life and restoring their standard of living.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t do that with talk. You do it with action.\u201d<\/p>\n The Liberals and Nationals are calling on the federal government to lift baseline fuel stocks from January, which would mandate current levels as the new minimum.<\/p>\n This would increase minimum levels for critical fuels as a whole by almost a quarter.<\/p>\n Under the minimum stockholding obligation, importers are required to have a baseline level of domestic fuel stocks.<\/p>\n Petrol and jet fuel mandate 27 days of supply, while importers must have enough diesel to last 32 days.<\/p>\n Lifting of the minimum stockholding obligation to 60 days would raise the price of fuel at the bowser by about 1 cent per litre, according to coalition analysis.<\/p>\n But the move is \u201cprudent insurance\u201d to prevent severe economic damage during a future crisis, it argues.<\/p>\n The proposal means fuel suppliers would need to build additional storage and buy extra fuel, with financial support on offer to help manage the cost.<\/p>\n Senator Canavan said households and businesses needed confidence fuel will be there when they need it.<\/p>\n \u201cThis plan is just common sense. Keep more fuel here in Australia so we are not relying on overseas supply lines that can be cut overnight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot keep hoping for the best. We need to be ready, and this plan gets us there.\u201d<\/p>\n Under the International Energy Agency\u2019s agreement, member countries which include Australia, are required to hold 90 days\u2019 worth of emergency oil stocks.<\/p>\n As at mid-April, Australia had 49 days of fuel stocks, according to the agency.<\/p>\n The Albanese government has previously said complying with the 90-day requirement would cost $20 billion.<\/p>\n Nations are allowed to store stocks outside of their countries and can count reserves held abroad as part of the requirement.<\/p>\n Conflict in the Middle East is strangling global fuel supply as key shipping lanes close.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s fuel reserves would be more than doubled to 60 days under a coalition plan to strengthen the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,84],"class_list":{"0":"post-634945","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","11":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634945","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=634945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}