National cabinet convenes to ponder fuel crisis as fire at one of two refineries highlights long‑standing import reliance

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Monday that a national cabinet will meet later this week to address what he described as the “long tail” of Australia’s fuel crisis, a gathering prompted by last week’s fire at the Geelong refinery that left the nation’s already fragile domestic refining capacity further exposed.

Australia, which imports up to ninety percent of its refined petroleum products, relies on only two operating refineries—Viva Energy’s Geelong plant and Ampol’s Lytton facility—making any disruption, such as the recent blaze, a disproportionately large threat to national fuel security. In response, the government said it would explore the full range of options to increase domestic refining capacity, explicitly courting private‑sector investment while also promising to consult state and territory leaders, yet it offered no concrete proposals, leaving observers to wonder whether the discussion will amount to more rhetoric than reform.

Albanese’s remarks also targeted multinational gas corporations, accusing them of enjoying “obscenely sweet” deals that have, in his view, left Australia poorer despite its abundant resources, a critique that resonates across the political spectrum but remains unanchored to any specific policy shift. He further warned that if any reform fails to appear in the upcoming budget it will not merely be a lost opportunity but a missed one, implying that the window for decisive action is already narrowing while the underlying structural deficiencies remain unaddressed.

Consequently, the convening of a national cabinet to discuss the ‘long tail’ of the crisis may appear as a procedural formality that acknowledges a long‑standing policy blind spot rather than a genuine attempt to reconfigure Australia’s fuel supply chain, thereby reinforcing the perception that systemic reliance on imported refined products persists unabated.

Published: April 21, 2026