Australia had eight oil refineries. Now it has two. Six shut down between 2003 and 2021. Not one was blocked, challenged, or meaningfully debated by any government of either party. The diesel in your truck, the fuel keeping the lights on in regional towns, the petrol in your tank - all of it now comes from somewhere else.
The first closed under Howard. The last two under Morrison. In between, four prime ministers watched the same thing happen and said versions of the same words: “commercial decision for the company.” Every time. The same words.
This is how it happened, closure by closure, minister by minister. The names matter. So does the pattern.
Australia’s refinery closures at a glance
| Refinery | Location | Operator | Closed | PM | Industry Minister | Government |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Port Stanvac | Adelaide | ExxonMobil | 2003 | Howard | Ian Macfarlane | Coalition |
| Clyde | Sydney | Shell | 2012 | Gillard | Martin Ferguson* | Labor |
| Kurnell | Sydney | Caltex/Ampol | 2014 | Abbott | Ian Macfarlane | Coalition |
| Bulwer Island | Brisbane | BP | 2015 | Abbott | Ian Macfarlane | Coalition |
| Kwinana | Perth | BP | 2021 | Morrison | Angus Taylor* | Coalition |
| Altona | Melbourne | ExxonMobil | 2021 | Morrison | Angus Taylor* | Coalition |
*Ferguson was Minister for Resources and Energy. Taylor was Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction.
Remaining: Viva Energy’s Geelong refinery and Ampol’s Lytton refinery. One caught fire in April 2026.
What happened to Australia’s oil refineries
Port Stanvac, 2003: nobody said anything
ExxonMobil shut its Port Stanvac refinery in Adelaide in 2003. Howard government. The minister for industry, tourism and resources was Ian Macfarlane. He issued no statement. Offered no rescue package. No transition fund.
Chris Erickson, Mobil’s refining and supply director, called it “a painful but necessary decision that Mobil needs to take in difficult circumstances.”
SA Premier Mike Rann condemned Mobil publicly. The federal government said nothing. The refinery was mothballed in 2003, permanently closed in 2009.
That was the template. Company decides. Government accepts. State complains. Nothing changes.
Clyde and Kurnell, 2012: “a commercial matter”
Nine years later, two refineries went on the same stretch of Sydney coastline. Shell closed Clyde in 2012. Caltex, now Ampol, shut Kurnell, announced the same year, physically closed in 2014.
Shell’s Andrew Smith, vice president of downstream, said the closure was “consistent with Shell’s strategy to focus its refining portfolio on larger assets.” He confirmed the carbon tax was not a factor. The company just didn’t want to run a small refinery anymore.
Caltex CEO Julian Segal said shutting Kurnell was the only way to end losses that topped $200 million the previous year. “We anticipate the closure will take approximately two years and involve a reduction in employee positions from around 430 to less than 100.”
The Gillard government’s resources and energy minister was Martin Ferguson. His response: the closure was “a commercial matter for Shell.” He said he “did not have concerns about security of supply.”
The government’s energy policy blueprint, the Energy White Paper 2012, backed him up. “Self-sufficiency as an energy policy is misplaced.” That sentence is worth reading twice. The official position of the Australian government was that making your own fuel did not matter.
Ferguson referred the matter to the House Economics Committee on 1 November 2012, a parliamentary committee with no power to reverse commercial decisions. Both Clyde and Kurnell had already announced closure. The inquiry was a post-mortem, not a prevention.
Bulwer Island, 2015: Macfarlane, again
BP closed its Bulwer Island refinery in Brisbane in 2015. Abbott government. The minister for industry was Ian Macfarlane.
The same Ian Macfarlane who held the industry portfolio under Howard when Port Stanvac closed in 2003.
BP’s Andy Holmes, president of BP Australasia, said “the growth of very large refineries in the Asia-Pacific region was driving structural change… putting huge commercial pressure on smaller scale plants.” He called it “an unsurmountable challenge.”
Macfarlane did not issue a specific ministerial press release. The government accepted the commercial rationale without challenge. Macfarlane is now a board member of Woodside Energy.
One man. Two governments. Two waves of refinery closures. No intervention either time.
Kwinana and Altona, 2021: too late
BP closed Kwinana in Perth in March 2021. ExxonMobil closed Altona in Melbourne the same year. Both announced under Morrison.
This time, someone in government objected. Angus Taylor, minister for energy and emissions reduction, said he was “deeply disappointed” by BP’s decision. Called the Altona closure “extremely disappointing.” The strongest language used across all six closures.
But Taylor also said government “expects BP to deliver on its commitment.” Accepting the closure as fait accompli. The government offered a $2.3 billion fuel security package. BP rejected it as insufficient.
ExxonMobil’s Nathan Fay, chairman of ExxonMobil Australia, thanked the government for “the significant support offered to Altona and other refineries.” Then closed anyway. “Our decision to convert our facility to a terminal is not a reflection of those efforts.”
Taylor assured the public the closure “will not negatively impact Australian fuel stockholdings.” The same assurance every minister gave after every closure. And every time, the stockholdings got worse.
The Fuel Security Bill 2021 passed later that year. Seventeen years too late. The Maritime Union noted only Viva Energy’s Geelong refinery had signed up.
Labor’s Madeleine King said Australia’s national security had been “profoundly compromised.”
She was right. As diesel hit 319 cents per litre in April 2026 and the country ran on 30 days of reserves, the cost of those seventeen years became clear.
Why did Australia close its refineries
They were warned
John Blackburn, a retired Air Vice-Marshal, wrote the NRMA fuel security report in 2013. Three weeks of fuel. The country would stand still without it. (Source: Blackburn NRMA Report, 2013)
In 2014 he followed up: import dependency had climbed from 60% to 90%. He called for a plan to stop it hitting 100%. Nobody made one. (Source: Blackburn NRMA Report Part 2, 2014)
Engineers Australia submitted to a NSW parliamentary inquiry in December 2014. “Liquid fuel in transit through geopolitical hotspots is not fuel security, it is wishful thinking.” (Source: Engineers Australia, 2014)
A Senate committee report in June 2015 addressed import dependency, declining refining capacity, and non-compliance with the International Energy Agency’s 90-day stockholding requirement. It sank without trace. (Source: Senate Rural and Regional Affairs Committee, 2015)
The government’s own Liquid Fuel Security Review in 2019 said maintain domestic refining capacity. The government ignored its own review. (Source: DCCEEW, 2019)
Exercise Catalyst, a war game run that same year, found it would take 21 days to declare a fuel emergency. The diesel stockpile lasts roughly that long. (Source: ABC News, January 2025)
The Australia Institute in 2022: “Over a Barrel.” Five refineries already closed. War in Ukraine had shown what happens when supply chains break. (Source: Australia Institute, April 2022)
ASPI in June 2025: “The vulnerability of Australia’s fuel supply is no longer a theoretical risk; it’s an active, accelerating threat.” (Source: ASPI, June 2025)
Lowy Institute, March 2026: “No recent Australian government can say it was not warned.” (Source: Lowy Institute, March 2026)
International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol, March 2026: the current crisis was worse than “two oil crises and one gas crash put together.” (Source: SBS News, March 2026)
Thirteen documented warnings. Every one landed. Not one changed a decision.
What does this mean for fuel security
The same people
The Australian Institute of Petroleum argued throughout that supply was “secure and reliable.” Cited “diversity of supply sources” and “stock on the water.” This is the industry lobby telling the government what the industry wanted heard. Engineers Australia called that exact position “wishful thinking.”
The government’s Minimum Stockholding Obligation, its own fuel reserve rule introduced after it was already too late, counts fuel on ships within Australia’s 200-nautical-mile zone as reserves. Blackburn called it “disingenuous” and “creative accounting.” You can’t burn fuel that’s sitting on a tanker 370 kilometres off the coast.
Ian Macfarlane is now on the Woodside Energy board (Source: Woodside Annual Report, 2023). Martin Ferguson went on to advise the resources sector through his role at the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (Source: APPEA, 2014). Whether those roles reward earlier inaction is a question worth asking. The money trail between fossil fuel companies and both major parties is examined in a separate investigation.
Six refineries. Eighteen years. Four prime ministers. Two parties. Not a single intervention. Not one law changed in time. Not one closure prevented.
Every minister said the same thing. “Commercial decision.” “No impact on supply.” “The market will provide.”
The market provided $3.19 a litre. Thirty days of reserves. A country that cannot make its own diesel. And one and a half functioning refineries, one of which caught fire last month.
The question for the next story is who got paid while this happened.
Sources
Refinery closures - company statements and government responses
- ExxonMobil (2003) - Port Stanvac closure, Chris Erickson quote
- Shell (2012) - Clyde closure, Andrew Smith quote. Confirmed carbon tax not a factor.
- Caltex/Ampol (2012/2014) - Kurnell closure, Julian Segal quote. $200M losses, 430 to fewer than 100 jobs.
- BP (2015) - Bulwer Island closure, Andy Holmes quote. “Unsurmountable challenge.”
- BP (2021) - Kwinana closure, Frederic Baudry quote. $2.3B government offer rejected.
- ExxonMobil (2021) - Altona closure, Nathan Fay quote. Government support acknowledged.
Government responses
- Energy White Paper 2012 - “Self-sufficiency as an energy policy is misplaced” dcceew.gov.au
- Martin Ferguson (2012) - “Commercial matter for Shell”, referred to House Economics Committee after closures announced
- Angus Taylor (2021) - “Deeply disappointed” (Kwinana), “extremely disappointing” (Altona). $2.3B package rejected.
- Fuel Security Bill 2021 - passed after all six closures
Warnings and expert reports
- Blackburn NRMA Report (2013) - Three weeks of fuel. Country stands still without it. aph.gov.au
- Blackburn NRMA Report Part 2 (2014) - Import dependency 60% to 90%. irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com
- Engineers Australia (December 2014) - “Wishful thinking” submission to NSW parliamentary inquiry parliament.nsw.gov.au
- Senate Rural and Regional Affairs Committee (June 2015) - Import dependency, declining refining, IEA non-compliance aph.gov.au
- Government Liquid Fuel Security Review - Interim (2019): “Maintain domestic refining capacity” dcceew.gov.au
- Government Liquid Fuel Security Review - Final (2020) dcceew.gov.au
- Exercise Catalyst war game (2019) - 21 days to declare emergency, FOI by Rex Patrick abc.net.au
- Australia Institute (April 2022) - “Over a Barrel: Addressing Australia’s Liquid Fuel Security” australiainstitute.org.au
- Defence Strategic Review (2023) - Called for Fuel Council. ASPI later found role “opaque.” defence.gov.au
- ASPI (June 2025) - “No longer a theoretical risk; it’s an active, accelerating threat” aspistrategist.org.au
- Lowy Institute (March 2026) - “No recent Australian government can say it was not warned” lowyinstitute.org
- SBS News (March 2026) - IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol: worse than “two oil crises and one gas crash put together” sbs.com.au
Industry and regulatory
- AIP position: supply “secure and reliable”, “diversity of supply sources”, “stock on the water”
- Minimum Stockholding Obligation - counts fuel on ships within 200nm zone
- Sea Power Centre - Fuel Security in Australia bibliography seapower.navy.gov.au
- ASPI “A system without a centre” aspistrategist.org.au
Key figure: Ian Macfarlane
- Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources under Howard (2001-2007) - Port Stanvac closure period
- Minister for Industry under Abbott (2013-2015) - Bulwer Island closure period
- Current: Board member, Woodside Energy
This is the second in a series investigating Australia’s fuel security crisis. The first story, Sold Down the River, examined the current diesel crisis. The next examines the political donations flowing from fossil fuel companies to both major parties while refineries closed. Ampol, Viva Energy, BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, and the Albanese government were not contacted for comment prior to publication.
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