Independent fuel reserve & pricing transparency for Australia.
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Live data from official government sources — takes a moment on first load
Last reviewed: April 2026
Australia is one of the most import-dependent developed nations when it comes to refined fuel. With domestic refining capacity reduced to just two facilities — Ampol’s Lytton refinery in Brisbane and Viva Energy’s Geelong refinery in Victoria — the country relies on a steady flow of imported petrol, diesel, and jet fuel to keep cars on the road, freight moving, and planes in the air. This guide explains how Australia’s fuel reserve system works, why it matters, and what the numbers on the AussieOilWatch dashboard actually mean.
Modern economies are deeply dependent on liquid fuels. Petrol powers the majority of passenger vehicles, diesel drives the freight and agriculture sectors, and jet fuel is essential for domestic and international aviation. A sudden disruption to fuel supply — whether from a refinery outage, a shipping bottleneck, a natural disaster, or a geopolitical crisis — can cascade rapidly through the economy.
Fuel reserves act as a buffer. They provide a window of time for governments and industry to respond to a disruption before it affects consumers and critical services. The size of that buffer, measured in “stock days,” determines how long normal consumption patterns can continue without new supply arriving.
For most of the past two decades, Australia’s onshore reserves have been measured in weeks rather than months. By comparison, the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve holds hundreds of millions of barrels of crude oil — enough to cover months of imports. Japan and South Korea maintain similarly substantial strategic reserves. This disparity is a frequent point of discussion in Australian energy policy circles.
Australian fuel stocks are held across a distributed network of terminals, refineries, and depot storage facilities operated by fuel importers, refiners, and distributors. There is no single, centralised strategic reserve akin to the US SPR. Instead, the system relies on:
The total onshore stockholding fluctuates week to week based on the timing of tanker arrivals, refinery throughput, seasonal demand, and commercial inventory management. This is why the DCCEEW publishes weekly updates and why the numbers can shift meaningfully from one report to the next.
The Minimum Stockholding Obligation is an Australian Government policy that requires designated fuel entities — importers and refiners above a threshold volume — to hold a minimum number of days of stock onshore at all times. The MSO was first introduced in 2012 and significantly strengthened in 2021 following a review of national fuel security prompted by the closure of several domestic refineries.
Under the MSO, obligated entities must hold at least a specified number of consumption-equivalent days of petrol, diesel, and jet fuel. The specific minimum varies by fuel type but is generally in the range of 24 to 28 days. If an entity falls below its obligation, it may face penalties and remediation requirements.
DCCEEW publishes a weekly Power BI report showing the aggregate stock days for each fuel type alongside the surplus percentage — how far above the MSO floor the current holdings sit. A surplus of +50% means actual stocks are 50% higher than the mandatory minimum. A surplus near 0% means the country is sitting right at the legal floor with minimal buffer.
AussieOilWatch queries this DCCEEW Power BI report directly and displays the raw figures without applying any modelling or extrapolation. The stock days and surplus percentages you see on the dashboard are exactly as published by the government.
As a member of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Australia is required to hold the equivalent of at least 90 days of net oil imports in reserve. For much of the past decade, Australia has been non-compliant with this obligation when measured on a purely domestic onshore basis. The government has used various accounting mechanisms — including counting fuel in transit and bilateral ticket arrangements with other IEA members — to close the gap on paper.
In practice, however, the fuel that is physically available onshore in the event of a sudden supply disruption remains limited. Critics argue that counting fuel on ships thousands of kilometres away does not provide the same security as physically accessible onshore reserves. The gap between IEA-measured compliance and actual onshore availability is one of the key reasons AussieOilWatch was created — to make the real, physical stock situation visible to the public.
The DCCEEW weekly MSO report contains several key figures for each fuel type (petrol, diesel, jet fuel):
Because data is published with a lag (typically one to two weeks behind real time), the figures on AussieOilWatch always reflect the most recent available snapshot rather than a live reading. The publication date is shown alongside every reserve figure so users can judge the freshness of the data for themselves.
Several factors make Australia’s fuel supply chain vulnerable:
These risks are the reason fuel reserve monitoring matters. Small changes in stock days can be early indicators of supply chain stress, and public visibility of the data helps ensure that both government and industry remain accountable for maintaining adequate reserves.
The AussieOilWatch dashboard presents the raw DCCEEW stock-day and surplus figures directly, sorted by urgency (lowest stock days first, lowest surplus as a tiebreaker). No burn-rate modelling, seasonal adjustments, or shipment credits are applied. The countdown timer subtracts elapsed time since publication to provide a visual indicator of approximate remaining supply, but it is an illustrative estimate — not a live tank gauge.
For full details on the data pipeline, refresh schedules, and display methodology, see the methodology page.
