Australia's Fuel Supply and Price Monitoring
How much fuel remains in Australia today, and when might supplies run out? Track the recent increases in petrol and diesel prices in Sydney, Melbourne, and across the nation.
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The federal government has maintained fuel reserves, reduced fuel excise taxes, and implemented a fuel relief package as Australia contends with a fuel crisis.
Although outages and price hikes have been reported, obtaining a comprehensive overview is challenging due to the involvement of thousands of independent businesses and multiple government bodies. We have compiled the latest data on fuel prices, station outages, and oil tanker deliveries.
Fuel Price Trends and Regional Variations
Examining average petrol and diesel prices across Australia reveals the extent of price increases since the conflict between the US and Israel and Iran began.
Significant variation exists in price and fuel availability, even within relatively small geographic areas. Fuel outages are dynamic; stations may run out of stock and later replenish as governments and companies strive to address supply chain gaps and release additional fuel.
Fuel Outages Across Australia
The map below illustrates the daily number of fuel outages throughout Australia. Users can hover over individual stations for a macro view and click through available dates to observe changes over time.
Since data collection commenced on 27 March, a spike in outages was observed in New South Wales and Victoria on 30 and 31 March.
Daily Station Outages
The subsequent chart displays the total number of stations experiencing outages of at least one type of fuel each day. This figure is an estimate and may undercount outages due to varying reporting schedules across states.
At least several fuel deliveries have already been cancelled or deferred, with further delays or cancellations anticipated.
Fuel Shipments and Tanker Activity
The next chart shows the total number of "port calls"—stops at Australian ports by tankers carrying fuel and crude oil shipments, the latter being refined into fuel.
This data does not differentiate between imports and exports but indicates a slight decline in tanker visits during February and March compared to the previous six years.
The same dataset reveals a decrease in tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz in early March. Prior to the conflict, approximately 20% of global oil and one-third of fertilizers were transported via this strait.
Government Fuel Reserve Policies
In early March, the federal government mandated that fuel companies maintain emergency fuel reserves. The following chart provides a weekly snapshot of fuel reserves relative to the new minimum requirements and estimates how long these reserves would last under normal consumption rates.
As of early April, Australia's fuel reserves—measured in days of supply—have actually increased compared to prewar levels.
Data Sources and Methodology
All data is sourced daily from government fuel websites and APIs.
Average prices for petrol, E10, and diesel are obtained once daily from Motormouth.
Some government fuel data is live, while other data is refreshed with a delay or when stations update prices. All displayed dates correspond to when data was retrieved.
Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and the Northern Territory explicitly indicate fuel availability in their data.
Outages in New South Wales and Tasmania are estimated based on typical fuel types carried by stations compared to current availability.
Western Australia's outages are based on temporary outage dates for each station. Data for 26 to 30 March was extracted from the WA Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety, with outages estimated similarly to NSW and Tasmania.
Daily total outage counts are calculated by summing all data displayed for each date on the map.
Tanker data is sourced from the University of Oxford, utilizing IMF data. Counts represent port visits by tanker ships, which may be imports or exports.
Tanker data is collected daily but is not updated every day.
