Aaron Fischer runs a trucking outfit out of Howlong, NSW. A few months ago, filling a single tank cost him $3,600. Last week it cost him $7,500.

His monthly fuel bill doubled. $150,000 to $300,000. He hasn’t taken a day off since February.

“I can’t afford not to drive,” he said. “And I can’t afford to.” (Source: ABC News, April 2026)

He’s not alone. Not even unusual. Just one of thousands watching the numbers tick up at the bowser while the people who built this mess insist everything is fine.

Diesel hit a national average of 319.0 cents per litre in the week ending April 12 (Source: Australian Institute of Petroleum, 2026). Before the US-Israel strikes on Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, it was 180.2. That is a 77% increase. In Lightning Ridge, above $3.20. In remote Indigenous communities, over $4 (Source: ABC News, March 2026). And one in twelve road transport businesses had already closed in the twelve months before the war started, according to CreditorWatch data. 8.3% closure rate. 40% up on the year before (Source: CreditorWatch, 2025).

Ninety per cent of everyday goods in Australia move by road (Source: BBC News, April 2026). The truckies going broke are the same ones delivering your food, your medicine, your water. This started as a fuel story. It isn’t anymore.

The spark

February 28, 2026. US and Israeli forces struck Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed, as reported by Reuters and confirmed by Iranian state media (Source: Reuters; Al Jazeera, February 28, 2026). Iran blockaded Hormuz.

Normal traffic through the strait: 138 vessels per day. Twenty per cent of the world’s oil. By early April: roughly five transits a day (Source: CNBC, April 2026). Twenty-eight vessels hit by projectiles. Ten seafarers dead. Brent crude ran from $71 to $127 in five weeks.

Australia gets half its diesel from Hormuz-sourced crude, processed through Singapore (Source: UNCTAD, 2026). Tanker charter rates went from $20,000 a day to $300,000.

That’s the trigger. The powder keg was built here.

”We get one go a year”

Tony Seabrook is 76. Fifth generation. Farms 3,700 acres in Western Australia, and by mid-April he had less than a third of the 30,000 litres of diesel he needs for the season.

“We get one go a year,” he said. “When it’s time to go, it’s time to go.” (Source: ABC News, April 2026)

There is no Plan B for that. You plant when the window opens or you don’t plant at all, and the diesel to run the machinery now costs more than some farmers will earn from the crop. A John Deere header burns 1,000 litres a day at harvest. The daily cost increase alone is $1,500. Nearly 60% of farmers’ cost base is climbing from the combined hit of diesel and freight.

Anthony Dorney runs timber in Bulahdelah, NSW. Sold $80,000 of cattle to pay for fuel. If prices hold, he’ll sell machinery and another $100,000 of stock.

“It’s just too hard,” he said. “Everyone’s going to start shutting down.”

Daniel Toyer fishes prawns in Yamba, NSW. Nightly fuel costs went from $1,250 to $2,150. He’s planning to lay off crew.

“We are at the point where we are going to have to lay people off,” he said.

Eight hours

Punmu. 1,300 kilometres north of Perth. CEO Edith Costello: the community runs out of drinking water within eight hours if the power station loses fuel.

“Really, we would have to shut the community down,” she said. (Source: National Indigenous Times, March 2026)

Djarindjin. 170 k’s north of Broome. CEO Nathan McIvor says residents are choosing between “fuel to go to Broome and our appointments, or do we get food?”

Four dollars a litre in some of these places. Four.

”No change”

DateWhat they saidWhat was happening
March 18Albanese: shortages are “distributional”WA mining company sent workers home. No diesel.
March 26Bowen: supply “same, if not higher”470+ stations dry. Diesel up 10% in a week.
March 27Government: “market is well supplied”Reuters: “hundreds of stations out”
March 31Albanese: conserve fuel, use public transportEnergy analysts: “a sign of panic”
April 7Diesel hits 319.0 cpl, all-time highNational average, AIP data
April 15, 11pmFire at Geelong. Equipment failure.Mechanical valve. 50 firefighters. 13 hours.
April 16Albanese: “no change” to supplyGeelong running at reduced capacity
April 17Iran declares Hormuz “completely open”Ceasefire. Structural vulnerability unchanged.

Australia went from eight refineries to two. One of those, Viva Energy’s Geelong plant, caught fire on April 15. A mechanical valve. Fifty firefighters. Thirteen hours. It is running at reduced capacity. The country is effectively operating on one and a half refineries, and the prime minister told the nation there had been “no change” to fuel supply.

They were told

John Blackburn, a retired Air Vice-Marshal, flagged the structural vulnerability in a 2013 NRMA report. Nobody listened. In 2019 the government ran a war game called Exercise Catalyst, which found it would take 21 days to declare a fuel emergency (Source: ABC News, January 2025). The diesel stockpile lasts roughly that long. The Australia Institute warned in 2022 that there was “no guarantee fuel would reach Australia in a crisis” (Source: Australia Institute, April 2022). By March this year the Lowy Institute was blunt: “No recent Australian government can say it was not warned.” (Source: Lowy Institute, March 2026)

The International Energy Agency requires 90 days of net import stocks from member nations. Australia has roughly 50. For diesel, roughly 30. Has never met the obligation since 2012 (Source: IEA; Lowy Institute). Japan has 241 days. The UK has over 90. Australia is the only IEA member that has never complied.

The government’s Minimum Stockholding Obligation counts fuel “on the water” as reserves. Tankers within Australia’s 200-nautical-mile zone. Blackburn again: “You can’t count it if it’s not in your port.”

The truckies’ last stand

Something unusual happened at the Fair Work Commission. The Transport Workers Union and the Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation showed up together. Union and employers. Normally at each other’s throats. Not this time.

Emergency hearings started April 8. April 14, the FWC issued a draft Road Transport Contractual Chain Order (Source: Fair Work Commission, April 2026). Mandatory fuel cost recovery. They flagged a debt cliff: April 21, 2026. The date invoices land that operators cannot pay.

The Australian Industry Group opposed the order. Wesfarmers too. Bunnings and Kmart. The big end of town does not want to pay more for freight. Fair enough. But the alternative is no freight at all.

Terry Snell is 68. Four decades driving Perth to Brisbane. Costs doubled from $9,000 to $18,000 a run, so he cut back from weekly to fortnightly. “There’s a massive shortage of trucks,” he said, “because a lot of blokes have just stopped running.” (Source: ABC News, April 2026)

Zak O’Brien, a TWU delegate, put it plainly: “Guys can’t afford to go to work. Guys can’t afford to take a day off work.” William Hawkes had his operator’s licence for three months when the price hit. Re-quoted every job up by a third. “Pretty catastrophic when you’re starting out,” he said.

When the trucks stop

Up to 70% of truck drivers could be forced off the road if prices hold (Source: ABC News; BBC News, April 2026). The economists are lining up. Associate Professor Devika Kannan at the University of Adelaide projects a 50% spike in food costs. NAB economists say inflation will go above 5% by mid-year. AMP’s Shane Oliver says prolonged disruption could tip Australia into recession in the second half of 2026.

And it is already happening. In New England, NSW, service station owner Andrew Brown limited purchases to $20 a customer. Barely enough to reach Tamworth, 60 k’s away. In Lightning Ridge, opal miner Sam Mehan wakes every morning to find the fuel price has climbed again. Over half her wages gone to diesel. She is considering camping at her mine, 80 kilometres from town, because the drive to fill up costs more than the fuel she can afford to buy.

NSW: 164 stations with no diesel, 289 that have run out of at least one fuel type. Victoria: 162. Queensland: roughly 90. South Australia: 46. (Source: news.com.au; 9News, April 2026)

Hormuz didn’t break anything. It pulled back the curtain. Every warning said this could be prevented. Nobody did. The question worth asking now is who chose not to, and why those same people are still in the room when the next set of decisions gets made.

Sources

Strait of Hormuz / Iran conflict

Fuel prices and diesel data

Trucking industry and supply chain

Geelong refinery fire

Strategic reserves and IEA compliance

Warnings and expert reports

Fair Work Commission

This is the first in a series investigating Australia’s fuel security crisis. The refinery closures, foreign ownership, and political donations are examined in separate stories. Ampol, Viva Energy, and the Albanese government were not contacted for comment prior to publication.

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