Fire-ravaged Geelong oil refinery charts path back to 90% output

The owner of one of Australia’s only two oil refineries expects to ramp back up to above 90 per cent of its maximum output within weeks, as it recovers from a major blaze that crippled key production units and heightened worries about Australia’s vulnerability to an ongoing global supply crunch.

A fire caused by an equipment fault Viva Energy’s sprawling Geelong refinery on the shores of Corio Bay on Wednesday night, tore through the section of the plant that produces petrol, and forced the plant to cut back to minimum output levels across the facility.

The incident came at a sensitive time. Until last week, the Geelong refinery had been operating at full capacity, delivering up to 50 per cent of all the fuel used in Victoria, and 10 per cent of the national total. Viva Energy has been seeking to pump out as much as possible to help Australia withstand global supply pressures caused by the war in the Middle East.

While Viva and the Albanese government acknowledge the timing could hardly have been worse, they insist its impact will be limited, and it will not worsen the availability of fuel for Australian motorists and businesses.

In an update on Monday morning, Viva said assessments conducted over the weekend had confirmed the blaze was confined to the alkylation unit, which converts gases into a component needed in petrol, the company said on Monday. Other major processing units in the petrol-production complex were unaffected.

The refinery had already clawed back the majority of its production capacity – returning to 60 per cent of its petrol volumes and 80 per cent of diesel and jet fuel – and expected to return to 90 per cent “over the next few weeks”. Viva Energy said it had sufficient fuel stocks to cover this reduced production and expected to “maintain normal fuel supply to our customers following this incident”.

Viva chief executive Scott Wyatt said any ongoing drop-off in refinery output from Geelong could be comfortably bridged by increasing imports from overseas suppliers.

“I think there will be no impact to what we supply into the Victorian market as a result of this incident,” he said.

In addition to supplying fuel from its refinery, Viva also brings in vast volumes of imported fuel via its network of shipping terminals scattered across the coastline, and can draw on its partnership with trading partner Vitol, one of the world’s biggest oil traders, to bolster deliveries. In total, Viva’s operations in Australia supply about 30 per cent of the nation’s fuel.

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