2026 Fuel Prices & Security of Supply

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#3470966 16-Mar-2026 17:51

wellygary:

deepred:

"Watching Mad Max Fury road"

Only because they were too embarrassed to recommend re watching NZ's own Shlock, coat tail hopping, post oil war masterpiece "BattleTruck" :)

https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/battletruck-1982/overview

Is that real (I mean, is it a real prop)? It's awesome! :-D

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deepred

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#3470968 16-Mar-2026 17:54

SaltyNZ:

wellygary:

deepred:

"Watching Mad Max Fury road"

Only because they were too embarrassed to recommend re watching NZ's own Shlock, coat tail hopping, post oil war masterpiece "BattleTruck" :)

https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/battletruck-1982/overview

Is that real (I mean, is it a real prop)? It's awesome! :-D

Yes, it was a real driveable truck. It got an appropriate send-off, you can watch it on YouTube.

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gzt

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#3470969 16-Mar-2026 18:06

CRL will cause a good number of cars to stay home.

The 'new' train station was excellent once it eventually got going but it always remained a hard slog up the hills afterwards for many. The CRL fixes that aspect and more.

If it had been ready on the original schedule, perfect timing. Second half 2026 was the last estimate I heard.

Handle9

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#3470970 16-Mar-2026 18:11

SaltyNZ:

Handle9:

Then you further kill any industrial base and move more of it to the developing world. No company has that sort of money able to sit around in bonds.

If, for example, 2degrees had to pay a bond for removal of all cell towers they would never have gotten up.

Bonds are pretty common in some places.

That doesn't make them sensible for New Zealand. Where are the abundance of projects that need clean up?

More regulation and more barriers to investment aren't always the answer. Regulations are absolutely necessary but the juice needs to be worth the squeeze.

If a land owner wants to leave abandoned solar panels on their land that's their choice. It's their land and their choice. It's costing them money rather than anyone else.

deepred

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#3470975 16-Mar-2026 18:20

gzt: CRL will cause a good number of cars to stay home.

The 'new' train station was excellent once it eventually got going but it always remained a hard slog up the hills afterwards for many. The CRL fixes that aspect and more.

If it had been ready on the original schedule, perfect timing. Second half 2026 was the last estimate I heard.

Auckland can finally be a proper city of nearly 2 million people, instead of an overgrown country town of nearly 2 million people.

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#3470979 16-Mar-2026 18:28

Handle9:

If a land owner wants to leave abandoned solar panels on their land that's their choice. It's their land and their choice. It's costing them money rather than anyone else.

Well, I'll give you that one, yes. Those are pretty harmless in the scheme of things. I'm thinking more generally, like how we taxpayers got stung for half a billion dollars to clean up Taranaki oil wells (and the current government is letting the same company come back and have another crack at it).

EDIT: as an aside, though, just because it's on private property doesn't mean the public doesn't have a legitimate interest in seeing it cleaned up. See forestry slash, for example.

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gzt

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#3470981 16-Mar-2026 18:32

Siphonogeddon has begun in West Auckland

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360951725/auckland-worker-discovers-diesel-siphoned-out-his-truck-prices-rise

HarmLessSolutions

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#3470999 16-Mar-2026 20:29

gzt: Siphonogeddon has begun in West Auckland

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360951725/auckland-worker-discovers-diesel-siphoned-out-his-truck-prices-rise

We had a very suspicious visit from a guy to our out of the way rural property on Saturday evening. Said he was looking for a road numbered property that would have put him ~1.5 km away on the other side of the road. His beaten up black car exited our property pretty smartly when confronted with no front number plate and the partial ID on his back rego plate drew a blank with the Police when they searched it (suspected false plate).

My initial thought was that he was scoping our place for later but now I'm wondering if he thought our location was a possible location for a farm fuel storage tank. We don't have any fossil fuel requirements here so unless you can work out a way to steal EV battery charge you're outta luck on that front buddy.

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#3471024 17-Mar-2026 02:07

From todays media / press conference the key take messages..

South Korea (48% of NZ fuel imports) will keep exports going at 2025 levels
Singapore (20-30% of NZ fuel imports) intent to honor commercial supply agreements

For reference China that has banned exports makes up less than 5% of NZ supply (if we don't count LPG and other gasses).

Between the combined shipping time & onshore storage, our fuel supply chain is something like 52 days long (as at march 8). By watching tankers leave refineries (on the assumption that non get recalled), we will have about 50 days notice before a large supply crunch.

On the bases of the above, the government seems to have adopted a watch and wait approach. Seems pretty reasonable in my eyes. Might as well defer the economic and lifestyle damage from restrictions for as long as possible, as it is possible that the war could end, and ships start flowing again.

Generally the government seems to be shying away publicly saying that there are any issues at all. And are vigorously defending their policy decisions around EV's etc.

Seems to be some wishful thinking from the government, that the likes of our diplomatic relationship with Singapore will avail us preferential supply. I can't see why this would be the case. I think out best hope is getting our fair share of whatever they are able to refine, and would expect Singapore to give priority to their own domestic consumption and their local allies over us.

I watched an interview the Larry Blair an energy policy consultant (won't post the link, as the origination conducting the interview is known to have significant bias). Fairly insightful. One of the key take aways is that a heap of oil is both produced and Consumed domestically (for example the USA only imports about 2% of it's oil).

When this is stripped out of the global oil situation (it's not like the USA is going to slash domestic consumption to export 20% of their oil production.) the Iran situation removes 45% of oil out of the international tradeable market (Saudi does have a pipeline which can move a little bit of oil out of the area, but it is has terminal constrains).

Notes that the IEA reserves are often held in geological formations, and have relatively low extraction rates, so it is not like the 6 day release is finding it's way's to refineries at a rate high enough to offset the disruption.

Highlights that NZ / Aust is extremely venerable because of where our oil comes from.

-----------

My take is that we will start to see early indicators as the mega Asian refineries start to run low on crude in the next couple of weeks stock. NZ has perhaps the longest shipping distance so should get the longest warning signs and actual supply impact. We can watch and learn can watch and learn from other countries responses.

Some photos from reddit from the same location:

March 2022:

r/newzealand - Fuel prices in March 2022 compared to yesterday. Same location, we've done this before so we can do it again

Two days ago (95 is 3.239):

Note how the petrol is a little cheaper now, but diesel is 30c/ more expensive.

I think this is a sign of things to come, and that we will see diesel get a relatively higher price increase than petrol.

EV's and hybrids will have disproportionally eroded petrol consumption over the last few years, while diesel demand (largely driven by trucking and industry) has remained high. Petrol demand (largely private passenger cars) will be a lot more elastic than diesel demand.

And if it comes to conservation measures, fairly easy to save petrol via work from home campaigns etc. But diesel cars use 8% of all diesel in NZ, and light commercials like vans and utes use 15%, so not enough without cutting hard into productive sectors... Will be interesting how this is managed, especially given the luxary of time to come up with a decent response. Of course there are no good answers here.

cddt

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#3471026 17-Mar-2026 06:38

Scott3:

And if it comes to conservation measures, fairly easy to save petrol via work from home campaigns etc.

Most employers will only allow this if mandated to do so. There's not a H&S risk as there was with covid, so there's no incentive to comply beyond the minimum legal requirement.

And even if some people can WFH, a good many cannot, and these are likely the people who can least afford more expensive petrol.

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#3471034 17-Mar-2026 07:56

SaltyNZ:

I put a deposit on a new Seal on Thursday.

That is interesting. I had been told by a salesperson that the Seal was being discontinued in NZ. Obviously misinformation if you’ve been able to order one that’s not already in the country.

I have come close to trading my TM3 for one a couple of times. Waiting to see what happens with the Blade 2.0 battery and “GodsEye” tech.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

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#3471035 17-Mar-2026 07:59

wellygary:

I can only find one source online for this statement, and its a "sources say"... so I suspect Mr Hickey is probably playing things up a bit here...

I don't think so, South Korea is one of our biggest risks for supply. Maybe don't be so quick to dismiss the risks:

"The problem, however, is that Singapore has already lost access to 70% of its crude oil imports (due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz). If Singapore has no access to oil, then it won’t have anything to refine.".

"South Korea is similarly heavily reliant on the Persian Gulf for access to oil, and the country’s Government has already started talking about an export ban in a bid to prioritise local industry.".

https://www.stuff.co.nz/money/360951816/willis-says-we-have-52-day-fuel-buffer-numbers-arent-clear-cut

SaltyNZ

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#3471038 17-Mar-2026 08:50

Scott3:

Generally the government seems to be shying away publicly saying that there are any issues at all. And are vigorously defending their policy decisions around EV's etc.

They've spent the last 2.5 years nonstop blaming the previous government (who had to steer us through a once-in-a-hundred-years global crisis, plus a couple of others) for screwing the economy. Now they're entering their own crisis, which could end up being every bit as bad as COVID if not worse, and it's clearly scaring them witless because they thought they were going to surf the inevitable rising wave of the economic cycle and cruise into a second term lauded as heroes. Now they're finding out what it's like to govern in an extreme situation that you can't control, all your options are bad, the best you can hope for is to screw the economy the least, and you will probably never know which option that was.

FWIW though, I think sitting back and simply letting rising fuel prices put a natural brake on whatever consumption can be avoided is the right approach for the time being.

That does not, however, excuse their deliberate bone-headedness as regards stopping literally any plan to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and instead increasing it. Would keeping the clean car scheme have saved NZ from this crisis? No, obviously not. Having 30,000 more EVs on the road is nice but still a drop in the bucket. But it is illustrative of everything that is wrong with their approach.

You didn't have to believe in climate change to know that we really needed to decouple from fossil fuels. That should have been obvious to anyone who finished primary school. Now everyone who wasn't alive in the early 1970s is getting their first taste of the proof. And the people who were, a long overdue reminder.

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#3471039 17-Mar-2026 08:52

tstone:

wellygary:

I can only find one source online for this statement, and its a "sources say"... so I suspect Mr Hickey is probably playing things up a bit here...

I don't think so, South Korea is one of our biggest risks for supply. Maybe don't be so quick to dismiss the risks:

"The problem, however, is that Singapore has already lost access to 70% of its crude oil imports (due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz). If Singapore has no access to oil, then it won’t have anything to refine.".

"South Korea is similarly heavily reliant on the Persian Gulf for access to oil, and the country’s Government has already started talking about an export ban in a bid to prioritise local industry.".

https://www.stuff.co.nz/money/360951816/willis-says-we-have-52-day-fuel-buffer-numbers-arent-clear-cut

Yeah, exactly. This is not a question of whether we're good friends or not. To quote Snatch: "All. Bets. Are. Off. If all bets are off, how can there be any money?"

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MikeAqua

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#3471040 17-Mar-2026 08:56

Scott3:

On the bases of the above, the government seems to have adopted a watch and wait approach. Seems pretty reasonable in my eyes. Might as well defer the economic and lifestyle damage from restrictions for as long as possible, as it is possible that the war could end, and ships start flowing again.

Generally the government seems to be shying away publicly saying that there are any issues at all. And are vigorously defending their policy decisions around EV's etc.

Seems to be some wishful thinking from the government, that the likes of our diplomatic relationship with Singapore will avail us preferential supply. I can't see why this would be the case. I think out best hope is getting our fair share of whatever they are able to refine, and would expect Singapore to give priority to their own domestic consumption and their local allies over us.

Govt is quietly working in the background getting a fuel crisis system ready to stand up. In reality there is very little we can do internationally. When push comes to shove, nation will meet their own needs first with fuel as they did with vaccines.

EV policy won't make a significant of difference to this issue. Firstly, EV's mostly displace petrol use. It's diesel that matters for surface transport, back-up generators and some heating (domestic and commercial). Secondly, even under the previous subsidy system absolute numbers of EVs being purchased were small as % of fleet. We currently have ~90k BEVs. Assume subsidies continued and triple that figure. It's would still only be 6% of the light vehicle fleet. Margin of error stuff.

Personally, I'm barely using our vehicles at the moment - especially the boat at current prices. The gas bottles are full, the vehicles are full the boat is full and I have a transfer pump. Work is 35-minute walk along the riverbank. Kind of tedious, but also kind of nice. It's going to suck on rainy days, but we don't have many of those here.

Mike

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