![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774698909_264_image-14.png\")
John Selwood at the wheel of a John Deere 5090R, with his nephew Grayson. Photo: Supplied<\/p>\nIt\u2019s grape harvest time in Nelson and Marlborough, and vineyard management contractor John Selwood and his 40-strong team are running their heavy harvesters around the clock. \u201cWe\u2019re small, we\u2019re predominantly just running two machines. It\u2019s small numbers, but it\u2019s probably costing us around $800 to $900 extra per shift.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pressure is eased by the fact they filled up the 7000 litre capacity tanks at their base a couple of weeks ago, before prices really soared \u2013 but those tanks are now running low. John and his wife Hayley are crossing their fingers they\u2019ll get them through the final days of harvest \u2013 and then they can hold off refilling until winter pruning time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re hoping this is short-lived and that we can get through this fuel crisis. We\u2019ve only got two weeks of harvest left, and then we\u2019re tools down. I\u2019m trying to think positively here, that hopefully by June prices will be down again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure that the fuel shock is hurting people that are hurting already. But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s catastrophic for us at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Transport and agriculture business owners are all following the progress of oil tankers chugging slowly down through the Pacific. \u201cI just saw a photo of a boat coming into Nelson \u2013 it\u2019s like, is this a fuel tanker? But afraid not\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n
Blenheim accountant Anton James, who advises the wine industry, says the grape harvest is probably 75 percent complete now, so the impact is less, but cartage companies and harvesting companies will have borne extra costs over the past three weeks. \u201cI had one contractor query me on whether I had seen harvest companies add a fuel surcharge, but I have not seen it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the nervousness of business operators like these that Z Energy and its chief executive Lindis Jones are hearing, as they talk with customers around the country.<\/p>\n
Z Energy is the country\u2019s biggest fuel importer. Jones has spoken to Newsroom in his only media interview since the start of the oil shock.<\/p>\n
JM: Z Energy has a ship called Front Pollux arriving at Marsden Point, probably on Monday morning. But until that comes in with seven days\u2019 worth of diesel supply for the country, we\u2019re going to be running it right down. Have you been briefed on that?<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0A couple of observations on that. What we\u2019ve seen is a significant increase in demand, and that\u2019s at the retail level. I wouldn\u2019t call it panic buying. It\u2019s just that in the face of increasing costs, customers are bringing their purchases forward. So that\u2019s broadly 10 percent. Add to that growing data that the use of the fuel \u2013 that is, vehicles on the road \u2013 is declining. So what\u2019s happening is we\u2019re actually filling up fuel tanks, and using those vehicles less.<\/p>\n
John Selwood at the wheel of a John Deere 5090R, with his nephew Grayson. Photo: Supplied<\/p>\n
JM:\u00a0A big upwards turn and then slow usage?<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0Yes. The other thing is that the public data does not include service station stock where it\u2019s most needed, which is either in the vehicles\u2019 tanks I\u2019ve just mentioned, or service station stocks. And for us, that can be up to another five days of supply. Slightly less because of that demand, but they\u2019re recovering in the last 48 hours. So there\u2019s up to four or five days at retail sites.<\/p>\n
JM:\u00a0If I\u2019m correct that the ship that\u2019s coming into Marsden Point on Monday \u2013 the Front Pollux \u2013 is a Z shipment, then that means that some of your competitors might be looking pretty tight for diesel in the coming weeks. Are they coming to you to buy some of your supply?<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0So the arrangement of product going to Marsden Point, where I believe that vessel\u2019s going \u2013 that\u2019s a shared facility, co-mingled storage with allocation and call-up rules. So that stock will help all of industry.<\/p>\n
JM: Okay, so it\u2019s not correct for me to call that a Z shipment?<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0Well, it is. We organise it. But when you\u2019ve got a facility like that, you need to treat the product as co-mingled. That means you\u2019ve got to have what we call \u2018call-up rules\u2019, so it depends on your stock ownership, but it will be for the benefit of all of New Zealand, or all of the supply chain in that system.<\/p>\n
JM: Standard & Poor\u2019s Global has just in the last hour put out a fuel crisis update for Asia-Pacific, with quite grim downgrades of New Zealand, in particular its growth forecasts. New Zealand is the one country that it\u2019s downgrading for all of the next three years. Does this suggest that we\u2019ve kind of gotten almost like a wartime situation, where business and government need to work together in a new way to get through this?<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0There\u2019s two things, I think, Jono. The first one is the scale of the impact we\u2019ve seen on price and the duration of this. The impact of the Middle Eastern conflict will go beyond just the Strait of Hormuz being opened up. There has been damage to production facilities. There will be an absolute premium on supply security. We\u2019re seeing it with companies, and with countries, we\u2019re seeing hoarding at that level, which both will act to increase price, in particular for diesel, and that\u2019s the product that\u2019s the least sensitive to price and is required for huge parts of our productive sector. So that\u2019s a long way of saying, absolutely yes.<\/p>\n
JM:\u00a0And I noticed that the Prime Minister had a chat yesterday with the President of Korea who briefed him on Korea\u2019s plans around a fuel cap. What\u2019s your understanding of how that\u2019s going to impact New Zealand, these Korean plans?<\/p>\n
LJ: I think if you step back, the impact is most acute in Asia because, disproportionately, the big modern refineries in Asia that we\u2019ve had a long relationship with, take crude oil from the Middle East. And we take a lot of the New Zealand-specification fuel from the Middle East. So by default we are impacted. Where South Korea has been responsible is, on Friday last week, they gave some guidance on how they\u2019re thinking about product exports, where they\u2019ve just asked their refiners to not export more than they have previously, but at the same time they need to supply at least 90 percent of demand. So the cap and the collar was relatively transparent, in terms of that guidance from government to the supplying companies in Korea.<\/p>\n
JM\u00a0 So the statement from the President of Korea describes it as a fuel price cap, which sounds a little bit\u00a0 like a euphemism to me. It is a fuel supply cap, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
LJ: What I think has provided the strongest signalling to the market round supply, given their important role of supply into this part of the world, was the news on Friday and the guidance their government\u2019s provided to refiners around export. My understanding \u2013\u00a0 correct me if I\u2019m wrong \u2013 was that price cap was about domestic price caps. They\u2019re not capping the price to New Zealand!<\/p>\n
JM: So basically, the effect of this for New Zealand is that we can only buy 90 percent of what we bought at the same time last year from Korea.<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0No, they have restricted exports to no more than the same month last year. And at the same time, they\u2019ve required that refineries support 90 percent of domestic production. So they can reduce domestic supply to a certain extent, but only to 90 percent of previous demand, and neither can they export more than they traditionally have. So they\u2019ve provided an operating window for guidance for how refineries think about supplying domestic and international markets.<\/p>\n
JM:\u00a0I\u2019ve got the captions of Parliament\u2019s question time going on my screen to my left, and I see Shane Jones answering questions about diesel as we speak and accusing the previous Government of not sufficiently protecting New Zealand\u2019s diesel supplies. Is that a view you share or disagree with?<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0I\u2019ve heard it a lot. I can understand the perspective that having the refinery could provide more fuel security, if you didn\u2019t understand the industry. But the key thing there is having a refinery in the middle of our fuel supply system that produced 75 percent of our needs, that was increasingly unreliable, uncompetitive, would have been expensive, and we still would have had the complexity of getting crude oil into the thing. So we\u2019ve got a more diversified supply chain that\u2019s storage-focused, and we\u2019ve seen that in particular for jet fuel, where we\u2019ve got a hang of a lot more storage than we ever had.<\/p>\n
JM:\u00a0Should we have been putting higher stockpiling requirements for diesel?<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0There\u2019s tens of millions of litres there. And just in our import programme alone, there\u2019s well in excess of 150 million litres of product on the water coming to New Zealand \u2026 It\u2019s the uncertainty about events that may happen further into the future that is on my mind.<\/p>\n
JM:\u00a0What is Z doing differently around pricing, for instance, in this oil shock. Is it slowing down the pass-through or anything like that?<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0If you look at the price increases, the landed cost of petrol and diesel has increased by well in excess of a dollar. Our net profit margins are about three cents a litre. So our ability to slow that down or not pass them on is absolutely limited. And those price increases are huge, so I absolutely recognise the impact on Kiwi and Kiwi businesses, but with profit margins of three cents, the ability to slow that down or accommodate those price increases is absolutely limited and actually immaterial, given the scale of those price increases.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774698910_601_image-16.png\")
John Selwood works a New Holland Braud 9060L down a row of grapes. Photo: Supplied<\/p>\n
JM: If I go down to the petrol station today,is the price I pay reflective of what you\u2019re paying in Korea and Singapore today? Or does it reflect what you\u2019re paying on the oil that\u2019s landed in Marsden Point or wherever, today? Or does it reflect what the cost of the actual oil that you probably purchased a month ago?<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0Yes, so the answer to that one is, the way that we price reflects the cost if we had to go and procure that product today. It\u2019s a replacement cost basis. The markets have become so messy and volatile that it would actually be slightly less than that, given the premium of buying product today. But that\u2019s the model. The reason that\u2019s important is that it enables the clearest view of the profitability of industry. It\u2019s the way governments throughout the world monitor margins and profitability and it\u2019s the way that performance is managed. Because otherwise you get huge gains or swings in margins based upon inventory gains or losses. So it\u2019s the most transparent, obvious way to assess margins and from a cash perspective, that pricing enables the funding of replacement cargoes today. Because we have to go into the market and buy products now. So it\u2019s the most transparent way of monitoring margins and profitability. It\u2019s absolutely required to fund the purchases of future cargoes.<\/p>\n
JM: Tell me a little bit about what you\u2019re hearing from your customers about their experience at present, both private and business customers. I mean, it\u2019s grape harvest in Marlborough. And you know, suddenly those guys have got a whole lot of tractors and whatever combined harvesters or whatever else to run.<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0It points to the importance of diesel to a lot of our productive sectors. You could contrast that with some other harvests. I was talking to farmers from Canterbury a couple of weeks ago, and they\u2019re just grateful that they\u2019re through the great majority of their harvest. That\u2019s different from the grape harvest or other intensive diesel-intensive sectors like forestry. So you know, the impact is absolutely widespread and different across the different sectors.<\/p>\n
JM: Have you had a chance to talk to any commercial customers, or indeed, private customers in the last few days, as things get worse,<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0Yes, I have reached out to quite a few of our commercial customers and will keep on doing that. I need to do more of that so to make sure I stay connected with their world, not just imagining it. And I have spent time at retail sites. And I think the thing that I\u2019m most grateful for is the way that Kiwi are treating our retail sites. It\u2019s not their fault that prices are where they are. They\u2019re the last people that want to be selling their loyal customers high-priced product. The behaviour of Kiwi to our site staff has been great. There\u2019s been no uptick in abuse or anything like that. That was something I was worried about. But the best of Kiwi has come out, thankfully, despite the impost on them of high prices.<\/p>\n
JM: And what about your staff? Some of them must be pretty stressed as well.<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0There\u2019s a lot of people doing a hang of a lot of work, planning for a set of circumstances that haven\u2019t happened yet. There\u2019s been really high prices, and that has caused demand to be brought forward. And there have been stock-outs, but we\u2019re talking about a few hours, as it stresses the system, so that part of the team has been busy. And then the broad organisation has been busy preparing for a set of circumstances that may not happen yet around interruption of our planned import program, developing options of how might we get products from elsewhere in the world? So a lot of work behind the scenes, absolutely.<\/p>\n
JM: What about frontline service station staff? Are they finding it stressful?<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0Of course, we\u2019ve worried. But they deal day in, day out, with loyal customers. And so how they feel is determined a hang of a lot by that experience. As recently as yesterday, I spent time on sites in Christchurch, and unanimously the feedback was that their customers have been great. And I\u2019m hugely grateful for that, because to protect thousands of frontline staff is a challenge that\u2019s pretty difficult.<\/p>\n
JM:\u00a0Are there any outside-the-square logistics solutions you\u2019re exploring in terms of sourcing supply? For instance, drop-in diesel or alternative suppliers, or, for that matter, outside-the-square solutions for managing demand.<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0We\u2019re confident about managing demand in the short term, because we\u2019re seeing the use of the product decline. So there\u2019s less traffic on the roads, as people respond to those larger fuel bills. So in the short term, there\u2019s nothing that we\u2019re doing. But looking further into the future, which is our role, absolutely looking at options. You mentioned biofuels: one of the things that we will be looking to do is, at the right time, look at fuel specifications. For instance, diesel in Europe has a higher allowance for inclusion of biofuels than the New Zealand specification. So that\u2019s the sort of thing that makes a big difference. There are very large amounts of products traded globally that we\u2019re excluded from because of New Zealand\u2019s fuel specification. So the announcement earlier this week around alignment with Australia gives us a whole lot more optionality. And hopefully we don\u2019t have to use it, but that makes a real difference. And then I think coordination with Australia more broadly. We have very similar supply chains, so to actually have harmonized fuel specifications \u2013 buying the same fuel for two markets makes a big difference.<\/p>\n
JM: Is there any potential to increase the proportions of biofuel, the mix of biofuel,<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0It\u2019s a pretty limited pool globally, and it\u2019s pretty much tapped out. So the ability to build a biofuels plant in the timelines we\u2019re talking about is not really feasible.<\/p>\n
JM: And finally, just any conversations you\u2019ve had with ministers or MBIE leadership about working with government to manage the shock.<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0Yes, a lot of coordination. And one of my key roles is to make sure that they\u2019ve got as much information as they need, as quickly as they can get it, so they can do their job. There\u2019s lots of things that only the Government can do. For instance, engagement with other governments around Strategic Petroleum Releases, fuel specifications, and they\u2019ve also got to manage the wider impact \u2013 so at least daily contact across all the different agencies.<\/p>\n
JM: Okay, I have ran an article yesterday morning, which is getting very well read today about the tankers that are on their way across the waters. We mentioned the Front Pollux, which is the biggest one arriving this weekend. If I hit you with a few more names, are you able to confirm which ones are Z tankers? Yeah.<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0We can chase tankers around the world \u2013 which, in the case that the normal supply chains get interrupted, we will. But I think that\u2019s going to cause potentially more uncertainty and confusion. So there\u2019s product coming to this part of the world from Europe and America now, and that will change quite a lot.<\/p>\n
JM: Because I don\u2019t think anything from Europe or America, direct to New Zealand, has embarked yet. If so, it hasn\u2019t registered with the New Zealand ports yet. The only ones they\u2019ve got are coming from Asia.<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0There\u2019s definitely products scheduled to come to this part of the world, from the east coast of America.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-15.png\")
John Selwood\u2019s team loading a hopper of freshly-harvested grapes into a truck to the winery. Photo: Supplied<\/p>\n
JM: The tankers that we know are yours are Amasya, Oriental Aquamarine, both ex-South Korea, and Front Pollux, which is coming into Marsden Point this weekend. And those are all quite big ones. I think. But there\u2019s more coming from the east coast of the States, you think?<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0To this part of the world, absolutely.<\/p>\n
JM: Yeah, cool. Okay, look, thank you very much for that. You must be enormously busy, and I hope you actually get a chance to have something to eat and sleep at some point.<\/p>\n
LJ:\u00a0There\u2019s a hang of a lot of people working hard on this one, and they\u2019re doing a bloody good job. And we can do better with our customers. But I heard it described as the biggest energy shock in the history of the world. It certainly feels like it.<\/p>\n
Shipping details were correct at the time of the interview, but the company says it\u2019s exploring all options. \u201cAt this stage, Z is able to continue supplying fuel to our customers. However, global energy markets remain highly volatile and, if the situation in the Middle East remains unresolved, further pressure on global fuel supply chains is possible. Z sources fuel from a range of established markets, primarily in Asia, and continually reviews sourcing options as part of standard supply\u2011chain management.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s grape harvest time in Nelson and Marlborough, and vineyard management contractor John Selwood and his 40-strong team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[138,1667,111,43,7439,139,69,53667],"class_list":{"0":"post-352181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-energy","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newsroom-pro","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-primary-industries"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}