00:01A major fire broke out overnight at a key oil refinery operated by Viva Energy in Geelong,
00:08disrupting petrol production at one of Australia's last two operational refineries,
00:13authorities confirmed on Thursday.
00:15Yes, at approximately 11.15pm last night, a fire broke out here at the Viva oil refinery plant in Corio.
00:23The fire started in what's called the MoGas plant, which is a section of the refinery that assists with the
00:31production of high-octane fuels.
00:34There's been a significant leak of liquid hydrocarbons and gases that have fuelled the fire.
00:41However, no injuries have been reported.
00:43The incident comes as Australia seeks to strengthen fuel security amid global supply disruptions linked to the Middle East conflict,
00:52which has triggered panic buying of petrol and diesel locally.
00:56Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is currently visiting Malaysia to discuss securing fuel supplies with regional partners.
01:04But we'll work closely with Viva over the course of today.
01:07Obviously, the fire's still burning, so we can't make any final sort of conclusions about the impact.
01:14It's not a positive development. It will have an impact.
01:16But at this point, production of diesel and jet fuel does continue,
01:21and no reason to believe at this point that there's need to stop that.
01:25The impact on petrol production, I'm sure petrol production will continue,
01:30but it may be impacted for some time, obviously.
01:33Meanwhile, Viva Energy Chief Executive Officer Scott Wyatt
01:37said the company's immediate priority is to fully extinguish the fire,
01:42assess the damage, and safely restore operations.
01:46Most of the other units are still operating and still in production,
01:51but they're at minimum rates to maintain safety across the site.
01:54So we'll only start increasing production again once we're confident that we can do that safely.
02:00The Geelong Refinery, located about an hour's drive from Melbourne in the state of Victoria,
02:06can process up to 120,000 barrels of oil per day.
02:11It supplies more than half of Victoria's fuel needs and around 10% of Australia's total demand.
02:20The Geelong Refinery, located in the state of Victoria,
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