{"id":135704,"date":"2026-03-27T07:02:46","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T07:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/panic-buying-prompts-pm-to-reassure-australians-over-fuel-supply\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T07:02:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T07:02:46","slug":"panic-buying-prompts-pm-to-reassure-australians-over-fuel-supply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/panic-buying-prompts-pm-to-reassure-australians-over-fuel-supply\/","title":{"rendered":"Panic buying prompts PM to reassure Australians over fuel supply"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has sought to reassure Australians that the country\u2019s fuel supply remains \u201csecure\u201d as prices soar and following reports of panic buying and petrol stations running dry since the start of the Iran war.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe longer this war goes on, the greater the impact will be. But we continue to act to prepare and shield Australians from the worst of it,\u201d Albanese told reporters on Friday.<\/p>\n

There have been reports of truck drivers and other motorists stranded, while businesses say rising costs are affecting their viability.<\/p>\n

The government says demand and distribution issues have caused shortages rather than supply, which it says remains at the same level as before the war began.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the next few weeks, Australia\u2019s supply of petrol and diesel and oil will be the same, if not higher, than it normally would be,\u201d Energy Minister Chris Bowen said alongside Albanese.<\/p>\n

In Cairns, Queensland, the BBC found a small independent garage that tells a pretty typical story in Australia. It has run out of unleaded petrol and the price of diesel is 85% higher than it was before the war in Iran started.<\/p>\n

In New South Wales, Australia\u2019s most populous state, one in seven retailers say they are out of at least one type of fuel.<\/p>\n

Australia has experienced steep price rises since the US and Israel attacked Iran and the Strait of Hormuz was closed, causing the price of oil to jump.<\/p>\n

The average retail price of petrol reached 238 Australian cents ($1.64; \u00a31.23) a litre as of Sunday compared to 171 cents four weeks earlier, according to the Australian Institute of Petroleum.<\/p>\n

The price of diesel in Sydney has meanwhile risen to the 314.5 cents a litre as of Thursday, according to the National Roads and Motorists\u2019 Association (NRMA), its highest ever price.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of petrol stations across the country have reported running out of at least one type of fuel this week.<\/p>\n

But shortages are due to people changing their buying habits, NRMA spokesperson Peter Khoury told the BBC. \u201cPeople are filling up jerry cans of fuel and storing it in their garages,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hearing increasingly of transport companies telling their drivers that if you\u2019re half full and you see diesel, buy it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Independent petrol stations were struggling to get fuel because they do not buy on long-term contracts which are prioritised by the oil companies, he added.<\/p>\n

Albanese is expected to hold an emergency national cabinet meeting on Monday to work out a response to manage the fuel crisis.<\/p>\n

The government, which has so far ruled out any form of rationing, has also sought to alleviate shortages by releasing oil from the national stockpile and lowering fuel standards.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s statements came a day after a cyclone in western Australia triggered outages at two of the world\u2019s largest LNG plants, adding further pressure to the global market.<\/p>\n

The two plants, Gorgon and Wheatstone, supply about 5% of the global market, according to Chevron.<\/p>\n

The post Panic buying prompts PM to reassure Australians over fuel supply<\/a> appeared first on KBC Digital<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has sought to reassure Australians that the country\u2019s fuel supply remains \u201csecure\u201d as prices soar and following reports of panic buying and petrol stations running dry since the start of the Iran war. \u201cThe longer this war goes on, the greater the impact will be. But we continue to act to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}