“This compares with 59.3 days’ petrol, 54.5 days’ diesel and 50.4 days’ jet fuel in the previous update.”
Changes in the level of stock can influence whether New Zealand moves phases under the fuel disruption response plan.
One of the six criteria to trigger an assessment of what phase New Zealand is at is if stocks decrease by three days’ worth since the last published update.
That doesn’t automatically lead to a move up the phases. For example, in Monday’s update, jet fuel levels had fallen three days since the previous update. But officials advised there hadn’t been a “material change” to fuel supply and therefore an assessment of phases wasn’t necessary.
That same day, the Government announced it was pursuing options to access alternative fuel stock.
It had already received some unsolicited proposals. Ministers will assess their commercial viability and wouldn’t share any details about who was behind them.
One such option is for New Zealand to swap what are called “tickets” – essentially emergency options to purchase different types of oil or fuel that a country can call on – for usable fuel suitable to New Zealand’s needs.
“At the moment, we hold tickets to different types of crude oil as well as some refined products,” Finance Minister Nicola Willis said. “We have assessed those and very few of them are actually suitable for use in New Zealand.”
The proposal would be to swap that “for a particular volume of refined fuel that could be used in New Zealand”.
She said it was “essentially taking something that’s a concept on paper and turning it into real diesel and petrol for New Zealand tanks”.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said New Zealand has sufficient levels of fuel currently but the Government wanted additional security and would be “more assertive”.
“Should the situation deteriorate in two months’ time, we want to put ourselves in that place right here, right now and say we’ve done everything we possibly can,” Luxon said, referring to it as an “and, and, and” approach.
He said that fuel importers weren’t communicating any issues with getting stock at this stage, but that didn’t mean the Government would “rest on our laurels and say ‘that’s fantastic’.”
“I want us to be on a much more aggressive, assertive position, which is actually thinking ahead”.
