2026 Fuel Prices & Security of Supply

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#3468306 10-Mar-2026 08:56

Note when politicians talk about fuel reserves, they're going to quote

“oil tickets”, fuel stored overseas that can be claimed in emergencies.
strategic stocks abroad

I'm excluding those amounts, because one in the hand, is worth two in the bush.

Both Australia and New Zealand rely on constant tanker deliveries, often weekly. The reserves mainly buffer shipping delays, not a total cutoff. We both relie on continuous tanker arrivals rather than large stockpiles

Japan and Korea have several hundred days, because they think ahead better than us.

New Zealand

NZ has 'healthy stock levels' of fuel - MBIE: RNZ

Petrol: 28 days, Jet fuel: ~24 days, Diesel: ~21 days.

Again Australia and NZ both meet IEA requirements only by counting overseas stocks, which I am intentionally excluding.

Because New Zealand closed the Marsden Point refinery in 2022, it now imports nearly all refined fuel, similar to Australia.

Diesel consumption is higher than petrol.

Australia

Labor says Australia won’t run out of fuel due to the Iran conflict. So how much do we have and how long will it last?: The Guardian

Includes storage tanks, refineries, and some coastal fuel shipments: Around 28 days of petrol, 25 days diesel, 20 days jet fuel.

Imports about 90% of refined fuel, mostly from Asian refineries.

Has historically failed the International Energy Agency 90-day stockpile target.

Low reserves are a frequent policy concern.

Much of it held by industry rather than a large government reserve.

Australia still has two operating refineries, Ampol Lytton and Viva Geelong. They supply a minority of national demand

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#3468314 10-Mar-2026 09:10

mudguard:

MadEngineer:

^ Relevant: You are being misled about renewable energy technology.

Good god. Any chance for a quick summary rather than a link to a ninety minute video?

The TL;DR is that all the talking points against renewables are bollocks and renewables are a no-brainer even if you don't believe in climate change.

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alasta

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#3468317 10-Mar-2026 09:18

michaelmurfy:

I don’t want to turn this into a debate, or an EV thread but out of all honestly our 2 EV’s were one of the best purchases we made. I know they’re not perfect for everyone yet especially if you don’t have an ability to charge at home but for our use, and the amount of driving we do (upwards of 500km a week) including driving all over the country they’re absolutely perfect and we could never go back.

It's a shame public charging is so expensive, otherwise I would seriously consider an electric car.

I did some maths recently to work out the cost of running an EV on public charging versus the cost of running a hybrid under a fleet-wide RUC scenario (i.e. adjusting out the unfair short term excise tax advantage that hybrids currently receive). It breaks even when fuel gets to about $3.20 per litre, so for those who don't have charging facilities at home it's a difficult financial proposition even with inflated fuel prices.

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#3468318 10-Mar-2026 09:21

MadEngineer:
^ Relevant: You are being misled about renewable energy technology.

Summary of presenter's position, in this very long video

Why do we still chase oil in 2026?

We are stuck using old 1800s fuel tech, burning money for every kilometer.

One car can burn half a tanker truck of gas in its life.

Renewables harvest energy. Solar + batteries = buy once, use for decades.

The sun is free. Solar panels are cheap. Batteries are pretty durable.

The math is simple: spend big on gas forever, or spend once on solar and chill.

Again summarizing the video.

kingdragonfly

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#3468323 10-Mar-2026 09:34

alasta: ...for those who don't have charging facilities at home it's a difficult financial proposition even with inflated fuel prices....

“Charging facilities” sounds a bit dramatic.

For most homes the wiring requirement isn’t anything exotic. A typical install is similar to an oven circuit, roughly a 25–40 A circuit.

The difference is that an oven cycles on and off, while an EV charger might draw around 32 A continuously for several hours.

So electrically it’s pretty ordinary for a modern switchboard.

But you’re right that if someone doesn’t have access to even a basic plug at home, owning an EV becomes a lot more inconvenient.

trig42

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#3468382 10-Mar-2026 10:25

kingdragonfly:
MadEngineer:

^ Relevant: You are being misled about renewable energy technology.

Summary of presenter's position, in this very long video

Why do we still chase oil in 2026?

We are stuck using old 1800s fuel tech, burning money for every kilometer.

One car can burn half a tanker truck of gas in its life.

Renewables harvest energy. Solar + batteries = buy once, use for decades.

The sun is free. Solar panels are cheap. Batteries are pretty durable.

The math is simple: spend big on gas forever, or spend once on solar and chill.

Again summarizing the video.

Then a big rant, which is very unlike him. A good video and worth a watch (even if you just watch up to the first set of credits - the rant about the current leadership situation in the USA is after that).

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#3468384 10-Mar-2026 10:38

trig42:

Then a big rant, which is very unlike him.

I dunno man, have you ever watched his videos on Christmas tree lights?

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alasta

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#3468386 10-Mar-2026 10:46

kingdragonfly:
alasta: ...for those who don't have charging facilities at home it's a difficult financial proposition even with inflated fuel prices....

“Charging facilities” sounds a bit dramatic.

For most homes the wiring requirement isn’t anything exotic. A typical install is similar to an oven circuit, roughly a 25–40 A circuit.

The difference is that an oven cycles on and off, while an EV charger might draw around 32 A continuously for several hours.

So electrically it’s pretty ordinary for a modern switchboard.

But you’re right that if someone doesn’t have access to even a basic plug at home, owning an EV becomes a lot more inconvenient.

Okay, I'll rephrase it to "access to electricity" which is something I don't have in my remote allocated townhouse car park.

I wouldn't say it's inconvenient for me to use a public charger as they are available at my local swimming pool and supermarket - both places where I spend enough time to easily get enough charge for the week. For me the obscene cost of public charging is the real problem.

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#3468393 10-Mar-2026 11:10

alasta:

Okay, I'll rephrase it to "access to electricity" which is something I don't have in my remote allocated townhouse car park.

I wouldn't say it's inconvenient for me to use a public charger as they are available at my local swimming pool and supermarket - both places where I spend enough time to easily get enough charge for the week. For me the obscene cost of public charging is the real problem.

Agreed, I'm lucky enough to have PV at home, along with a cheap overnight rate if I need to charge overnight (18.4 cents). We did a road trip last week and paid the casual rate of 80 cents for DC charging - which is fine for occasional use.

For the OP - are there any subscriptions for DC chargers that provide a lower tariff ?

Or using plug share is there a local AC charger than can be hooked up to ?

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#3468395 10-Mar-2026 11:15

fastbike: any subscriptions for DC chargers that provide a lower tariff ?

Or using plug share is there a local AC charger than can be hooked up to ?

I believe Genesis offers a deal with ChargeNet where you can charge on their network for home power rates. But there are areas where other networks cover more than ChargeNet. South of Turangi is more OpenLoop than ChargeNet, for example.

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#3468398 10-Mar-2026 11:24

The vast majority of vehicles are parked up overnight and during the day. Ubiquitous 10A standard charging would be cheap and would solve many problems. Ie; No need for excessive capacity to support fast charging everywhere. A net contribution to NZ energy security.

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#3468401 10-Mar-2026 11:29

gzt: The vast majority of vehicles are parked up overnight and during the day. Ubiquitous 10A standard charging would be cheap and would solve many problems. Ie; No need for excessive capacity to support fast charging everywhere. A net contribution to NZ energy security.

So expecting some leadership from a government to make changes to the Building Act maybe ? I think they have run away from their pre-election promises re public chargers, so good luck.

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#3468403 10-Mar-2026 11:36

fastbike:

gzt: The vast majority of vehicles are parked up overnight and during the day. Ubiquitous 10A standard charging would be cheap and would solve many problems. Ie; No need for excessive capacity to support fast charging everywhere. A net contribution to NZ energy security.

So expecting some leadership from a government to make changes to the Building Act maybe ? I think they have run away from their pre-election promises re public chargers, so good luck.

Correct; National told us that the Labour/Green strategy was a complete failure and that instead the correct way to do it was to invest a huge amount of taxpayer money into the charging network because that was really what was holding back the EV tide. And then they quietly discarded their policy to invest any taxpayer money into the charging network.

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#3468412 10-Mar-2026 12:27

fastbike:
gzt: The vast majority of vehicles are parked up overnight and during the day. Ubiquitous 10A standard charging would be cheap and would solve many problems. Ie; No need for excessive capacity to support fast charging everywhere. A net contribution to NZ energy security.
So expecting some leadership from a government to make changes to the Building Act maybe ? I think they have run away from their pre-election promises re public chargers, so good luck.

There are already some helpful changes in place here and there.

SaltyNZ

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#3468421 10-Mar-2026 13:42

SaltyNZ:

Correct; National told us that the Labour/Green strategy was a complete failure and that instead the correct way to do it was to invest a huge amount of taxpayer money into the charging network because that was really what was holding back the EV tide. And then they quietly discarded their policy to invest any taxpayer money into the charging network.

And this just in:

There have been bumps in the road – of the Government’s own making. It scrapped the EV-subsidising clean car discount, and as reported last year, no extra money for EV infrastructure materialised despite National promising to spend an extra $170m.

...

Then, last year, the programme shifted from making grants to concessionary loans.

But 30 months after Luxon stood in a Christchurch car park, flanked by future ministers Simeon Brown and Simon Watts, and vowed to “supercharge” EV infrastructure, no loan contracts have been agreed.

...

By Newsroom’s calculations, to get to [the Luxon government's goal of] 10,000 chargers by January 2030, 174 charging points would have to be built every month. That’s more each month than was built in all of 2025.

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