00:01There are more petrol stations who have fuel in stock and there are more deliveries on
00:06the way.
00:07And Chris Bowen says this is all shaping up to be a positive result this Easter.
00:12He says there are more than 50 ships on track to arrive in Australia carrying more fuel.
00:18There's still only been those six cancellations that we've previously heard about, which have
00:22since been replaced with more stock.
00:24And Chris Bowen, the Energy Minister, has been giving weekly updates on those fuel stocks.
00:30And he says today is good news for consumers.
00:33In our fuel reserves, we have 39 days of petrol, 29 days of diesel and 30 days of jet fuel.
00:41This number has remained consistent and should continue to remain consistent or growing with
00:47those 50 or more deliveries coming in.
00:50Chris Bowen also gave a rap on how many petrol stations are experiencing shortages around
00:55the country, the number of which are decreasing.
00:58He says in New South Wales, 150 service stations don't have diesel, which is down 32 on last
01:05week.
01:06Victoria, 51 without diesel.
01:09Queensland, 49.
01:10South Australia, 13.
01:13Tasmania, 8.
01:14Northern Territory, 5.
01:15And the ACT, 6.
01:17He says there's been a decrease across the board in the number of stations who have outages
01:22and puts Australia in a good position given the international oil crisis.
01:27Here's what he had to say.
01:29We are also seeing very strong demand.
01:32So that means the fact that these figures are effectively flat, diesel's down one day,
01:36the other two are flat on last week, means that fuel is going out the door to service stations
01:41and farmers, and fuel is coming in the door at Australia's import terminals, and our refineries
01:48are working full pelt.
01:50Now, Energy Minister Chris Bowen also says that our purchasing of fuel is up 30% from this
01:57time last year.
01:58This can be put down to a couple of different things.
02:01It could be a continuation of the panic buying that we're seeing, but it could also be that
02:05people are now seeing prices start to come down at the bowser, and so they're taking advantage
02:10of that, filling up while the prices are low.
02:13But also the NRMA have said that people's buying habits are changing.
02:17People tend to not wait until their tank is empty before they fill up.
02:22If they see somewhere that has diesel in stock or somewhere with a slightly better price,
02:26then they're filling up immediately.
02:28So that has driven an increase in purchasing.
02:31Viva Energy and Ampol both say they've increased their truck fleets to make sure that everyone
02:36can get to where they need to get to this Easter.
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