00:00Australia's petrol production is set to be impacted as firefighters battle of
00:05fire at one of Australia's two oil refineries. Explosions were heard just
00:10after 11 p.m. on April 15th as part of Viva Energy Geelong refinery was
00:16engulfed in flames. The fire started in what's called the MoGas plant which is
00:22a section of the refinery that assists with the production of high octane fuels.
00:27There's been a significant leak of liquid hydrocarbons and gases that have
00:34fueled the fire. The fire has continued to burn overnight and is still burning at
00:39the moment. The unit that's been impacted is a unit that turns LPG, so gases, into a
00:47gasoline component. That gasoline component is used for a number of
00:51purposes including in the blending of normal regular gasoline that you buy
00:56from your service stations, but also in some specialty products like low aromatic
01:00gasoline that's provided to remote communities around the country.
01:04As Australia battles a global fuel crisis, many are concerned how this will impact
01:09domestic production. The refinery supplies more than 50% of Victoria's fuel and 10% of
01:17Australia's. The major impact at this point appears to be more on petrol production, but
01:22it will work closely with Viva over the course of today. Obviously the fire's still burning,
01:26so we can't make any final sort of conclusions about the impact. It's not a positive development,
01:32it will have an impact, but at this point production of diesel and jet fuel does continue and no reason
01:40to believe at this point that there's need to stop that. The impact on petrol production, I'm sure petrol
01:46production will continue, but it may be impacted for some time obviously.
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