^^^
Yes
www.iea.org/areas-of-work/ensuring-energy-security/oil-security

In accordance with the Agreement on an International Energy Programme (I.E.P.), each IEA country has an obligation to hold emergency oil stocks equivalent to at least 90 days of net oil imports. In case of a severe oil supply disruption, IEA members may decide to release these stocks to the market as part of a collective action.

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amirite said..

elmo said..
Australia only has 28 days of fuel reserves where all 3rd wold nations are supposed to have 90 days.

i mean, is that like some kind of rule

Not too sure about third world countries** - but there is an international agreement / treaty / law [or whatever] that all developed countries shall [should??] keep a strategic reserve stockpile of sufficient fuel for 90 days.

Apparently, for some time we have been fudging the figures by claiming that any crude oil or processed fuel in transit from overseas is part of our reserve.

** descriptions are kinda out of date a bit - but you should get the drift

"first world" = the civilised democratic and developed countries - USA, UK, most of Europe, Australia, [N.Z.??] etc.

"second world" = the uncivilised old Soviet blok countries - USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam etc.

"third world" = all the countries that the USA hasn't got around to liberating yet.

excuse my ignorance
but is the thread title inaccurate again

@amirite ............... yes you are right

@mark ............. it might not be an economic argument to some people, but to a multinational oil company executive it's just dollars and cents and the shareholders won't let you waste them on an unviable operation. If it's economically viable to refine here they will; and quite obviously it's not. If the Australian government wanted to refine here then that's a different matter and they'd have to create a state owned oil company, how likely do you think that is?

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Mark _australia said..
Its not just an economic argument.
It goes toward national disaster resilience so if the companies don't want to work / do business etc here, the Govt needs to regulate, step in, store it, whatever to deal with it.
They aren't, and its criminal. Its woefully negligent.

There's a glimmer of hope Mark. Nuclear is being re-assessed. With no climate issues associated with our power generation we could go to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Quick to refuel, no heavy batteries to lug around. I'm pretty sure we could be self sufficient in nuclear fuel. And we've got no shortage of suitable places to mothball the byproducts. (the whole world's byproducts in fact. Now there's a money spinner!)

www.news.com.au/national/politics/nuclear-power-to-be-examined-in-australia-for-the-first-time-in-ten-years/news-story/677581a1e37611f9ca9b32d8a0cbad3d

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Ian K said..


There's a glimmer of hope Mark. Nuclear is being re-assessed.

That will be hard sell just after everyone watched Chernobyl on foxtel.
Ps: I'm not anti nuclear

I am. I've already had to up and leave once. Don't let them introduce the threat here.

So how many days to order a new Tesla, 28 days more or less

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Mark _australia said..
Its not just an economic argument.
It goes toward national disaster resilience so if the companies don't want to work / do business etc here, the Govt needs to regulate, step in, store it, whatever to deal with it.
They aren't, and its criminal. Its woefully negligent.

I personally think it is bloody hilarious.

Reason being is because it just goes to show what a crock of utter sh1t all of the legal changes which have been made in the past eighteen years in the interests of "national security" are.

If you wanted to bring a country to its knees really quickly cutting it off from its principle fuel supply would have to be THE most effective.

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gs12 said..

FormulaNova said..

Mobydisc said..
Australia has plenty of oil, its just not financially viable to extract it. Personally I think if petrol or diesel reserves fell to very low levels in Australia with prices suddenly going up, a lot of ships full of these fuels would start coming here to sell their cargo. Thus the problem would solve itself through the market operating.

If there were restrictions on the market operating like blockades and sanctions, it would not take too long for fuel to be produced here. The methods to do it are pretty well established and we'd have the capital to do it. Just like with a lot of other production, if its cheaper to get it done somewhere else then it makes sense to get it done somewhere else. This includes someone else storing fuel for us. Yes it could work out bad for us if the Chinese or Americans decide to declare war on Australia.

Is oil sold that way? Its a genuine question. Do people just bring their tanker to you, or do you go pick it up from the supplier in your own tanker? Do you make contracts well ahead of time, or do you just pop down to the local oil supplier and buy up on the day?

Someone on here must know, but I suspect Australia has a considerable supply of oil. Surely there are oil rigs off the coast here somewere. I think in Vic and WA, surely?

I know when I was reading up on Venezuela's oil problems that they had a drama when they filled the tanker with the wrong grade of oil, and had to pay a penalty to the tanker for having the wrong grade. I suspect that sort of cash handover is not normal and it would have been contracted well before delivery.

AFAIK WA has mostly gas reserves offshore. Some oil but that is just a bi-product.
Most gas contracts (LNG in this case) are long term (think 20+ year agreements) but I think the Oil & Gas companies are trying the spot market as well.
Lot of gas in Queensland too, not sure about other states. There was some development in the Australian Bight but I think most majors pulled out due to enviromental concerns .

I'm happy to be corrected on this &I think all of this is public information anyway so you can search what are Australia's oil and gas reserves (in the ground) and who produces what and where it goes (domestic markets or export).

Someone mentioned SASOL (gas to liquid) - I know at least one WA project looked at it as alternative but ended up going ahead with LNG instead.

I've no idea how much it produces but there is a shale oil operation just outside Gladstone.

Hey Japie, I think that the Stuart shale oil plant was only ever a pilot plant and not fully viable. You only have to ask Ze Germans how strategically important a fuel supply is, once they were cut off in the south east they were sunk. Wasn't the main catalyst for the Japanese kicking off WW2 in the Pacific a search for a fuel supply too?

Remember this topic?
Personally, I think that the Houthi strikes on Aramco were a bit pissweak. I can't remember the title or author, but I do remember reading a disaster novel years ago based on the premise that somebody managed to turn the Arabian oil fields radioactive.....

www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-19/australia-remains-vulnerable-to-running-out-of-fuel/11527492

It sounds alarmist, but the Government's own figures support his view on Australia's vulnerability.

In its latest review of Australia's liquid-fuel security, the Department of Environment and Energy found Australia had reserves of 18 days of petrol, 22 days of diesel and 23 days of jet fuel.

When those that lose everything inc fuel, food, water they will lose it and behave like Zombies . Don't worry they have a plan and have trained for such scenarios, just don't turn into a road warrior fuel, food, water and dieseased ridden Zombie.

Anyone wanna buy some silver.... mates rates?

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poor relative said..
Anyone wanna buy some silver.... mates rates?

sure, which bridge you living under?

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japie said..


I've no idea how much it produces but there is a shale oil operation just outside Gladstone.

I believe they only ran it as a pilot plant to prove viability then shut it down. Greenies etc gave them a hard time. It is money in the bank for the owners.

Oh no, the sky, the sky is falling!

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cisco said..

japie said..


I've no idea how much it produces but there is a shale oil operation just outside Gladstone.

I believe they only ran it as a pilot plant to prove viability then shut it down. Greenies etc gave them a hard time. It is money in the bank for the owners.

Mate of mine what lived up there reckons there an expansion happening. They certainly screwed the environment up. That whole valley is free of humans. Apparently used to be the food bowl of the area.

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elmo said..
This has been known for Decades (I've known of it for at least a decade).

Australia only has 28 days of fuel reserves where all 3rd wold nations are supposed to have 90 days.

So what does that mean, well if oil supply gets stopped for some reason after 28 days we are in a whole world of hurt, Australia suffers the tyranny of distance, we are a vast land, without vehicles running no food gets delivered, no coal gets dug up for the power stations so the lights go out.

There is only so much fish n chips oil to make bio deisel.

Now this has been an issue for which all previous governments have chosen to ignore, but the reality is real.

www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-05/australia-looks-to-buy-us-oil-amid-reserve-concerns/11384196

28 days

well we are down to 18 days now.

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poor relative said..
Anyone wanna buy some silver.... mates rates?

Sure @ $20-24 oz no problem, why I will even drive to WA for it
S

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Macroscien said..
Many of houses in Australia have solar panels and inverters already. Unfortunately all is designed to work only when grid is active. Years ago I proposed to introduce off the grid mode. With small or bigger battery each solar installation may deliver the power to home when grid is down. We don't need for apocalypse for this to happen. Quite often usual weather event or fires may cut the power supply off.

What in the world? Not all houses need to be connected to the grid at all; we're going off soon and our neighbours have been there for 20 years and never had a wire running into the house.

How could you "propose to introduce" something that has been around for years?

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Chris 249 said..

Macroscien said..
Many of houses in Australia have solar panels and inverters already. Unfortunately all is designed to work only when grid is active. Years ago I proposed to introduce off the grid mode. With small or bigger battery each solar installation may deliver the power to home when grid is down. We don't need for apocalypse for this to happen. Quite often usual weather event or fires may cut the power supply off.

What in the world? Not all houses need to be connected to the grid at all; we're going off soon and our neighbours have been there for 20 years and never had a wire running into the house.

How could you "propose to introduce" something that has been around for years?

I think he is talking about off-grid mode for solar driven inverters. Which is there for safety to make sure that any lineworkers don't get fried by someone's connection taking them out when the line is meant to be dead. Doing otherwise would require some method of isolating the power from the grid in some fail-safe mode.

Of course, non-grid-tied inverters have been around for ages.

I thought someone here mentioned before that even if you are not connected to the grid, if it passes your place, you have to pay a connection fee. Is this the case? Only in towns?

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elmo said..
This has been known for Decades (I've known of it for at least a decade).

Australia only has 28 days of fuel reserves where all 3rd wold nations are supposed to have 90 days.

So what does that mean, well if oil supply gets stopped for some reason after 28 days we are in a whole world of hurt, Australia suffers the tyranny of distance, we are a vast land, without vehicles running no food gets delivered, no coal gets dug up for the power stations so the lights go out.

There is only so much fish n chips oil to make bio deisel.

Now this has been an issue for which all previous governments have chosen to ignore, but the reality is real.

www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-05/australia-looks-to-buy-us-oil-amid-reserve-concerns/11384196

28 days

First, Australia is British and controlled by the monarchy, it uses dictatorial methods of control called "short-falling" supplies so it cannot have enough for everyone hence e.g. terrorists but more plotters and revolutionists CANNOT build up enough supplies without discovering them because they don't have a short-fall of AKA resources for them to use.
The processes they use are extremely unethical .

Here is another example of this, if you know that the Germans during WW2 developed a STOL light aircraft called a "Storch" , Britain had STOL and wing development for purpose in WW2. The point being that by 1950 many light aircraft made by manufacturers around the world were capable of much better performance and economy and Australia should have been seen as Canada for distance of travel and light aircraft requirement to be a "household vehicle" but has never had a proper set of light aircraft builders of which "Jabiru" in Queensland and a few others to not scrape up to what has been around in the USA since 1994 such as Bearhawk 4 seat.

The problem is simply unethical monarchist security process against revolutionary plot and against UN interference because basically a UN investigator when in Australia is alone !

www.scribd.com/document/372966184/PPL-Light-Aircraft-for-Australians-2018-and-beyond