https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/study-underway-secure-national-fuel-resilience
The refinery at Marsden Point was not mothballed it was demolished,
and by its owners (which was not the Government). If this sort of
inaccuracy appears in a Ministerial press release, the rest of it is
likely to also be a pack of lies.
When the demolished refinery was built by the Government, importation
of refined product produced by the refinery was prohibited. When the
refinery was sold to NZ Refining (now Channel Infrastructure) NZR was
owned by all the existing fuel retailers. So up until the removal of
fuel import restrictions no new players could enter the market unless
they could get supply from NZR. When the restriction ended Challenge
was the first to import refined product, followed some years later by
Gull.
Fuel security was improved slightly by closing the refinery, as there
is a much more diverse range of supply of refined product than for
crude. Both rely on shipping, but crude comes from vastly fewer
counties.
Fuel supply security is indeed an issue but Minister Jones has shown
he is approaching this with significant ignorance. Hopefully ye
report commissioned by MBIE will more objective.
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Crash McBash
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