March 14, 2026 • 17 mins
Prices are up at the pump, auto shops are selling out of jerry cans, and we've seen the reports of thousand litre IBC tanks being filled up at BP.
It's raised the question around whether the closure of Marsden Point has been more harmful to New Zealand's fuel security that we had initially realised.
New Zealand would still be reliant on imports to meet fuel needs, but having the ability to import crude oil rather than just refined oil would likely lift the pressure.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News talks 'b.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
So yeah, prices are up at the pump. Auto shops
are selling out of Jerry cans, and we've seen reports
of the very large thousand liter tanks being filled up
at BP. Look, let's raise the questions around whether we
could have avoided this with the Marsden Point. A little
bit academic, but the question around New Zealand's fuel security
is one that's on many minds. And of course New
Zealand would still be reliant on fuel inputs, on inputs
(00:32):
to meet fuel needs, but would that have been changed
with the if we still had Marsden Point rocking and rolling? Anyway,
those questions and more with the Associate Minister for Energy,
Shane Jones joins me.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Now, good afternoon, Hey, gooday folks, greetings, good a, Hey.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
What do you make of the media coverage so far?
Have we all been a bit panicked?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Well, I'm very disappointed about the remarks that have been
ascribed to gull. Not once have a single fuel importer
conveyed to the government that we are facing shortage emergency situations.
(01:13):
They have all told the officials, myself and a variety
of others. Mate, that the fuel importers are living within
the statutory limits that we created after the Fuel Security
Plan was put in place as a consequence of the
New Zealand First Coalition Agreement. So the first thing I'm
doing tomorrow is finding out from my officials why is
(01:35):
the media reporting that Goal feeding a sense of frenzy?
And someone needs to talk to Goal because they've either
not told me the truth or they're building the lily
with the public. We can't have them both. It's got
to be one message. You can't be talking about both
sides of your God.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Is it a chicken in the egg thing that you
know the media whipped it up and then everyone rushed
to the fuel tanks and all of a sudden Goal
like a couple of our sites around out it. Could
it be a sort of a halfway house in terms
of the drama of the whole situation.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Well, mate, let's just get to the facts tomorrow after
fuel officials or indeed the Communist Commission call up someone
with some authority called gull up and say, okay, what
exactly are the facts? Do you have people that are
under capitalized, do you have a logistics problem? Or have
you not told the truth to the government in terms
(02:30):
of their statutory obligations. No, I'm very cross with them.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So where are we actually at right now? How serious
is the situation then?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Well, you can look at it one of two ways.
Is it a short term blip where we have to
pay a risk premium or does it reflect a structural change?
And I think for us as Key, we yes, we've
got the fifty day fuel access arrangement. Half of it's
(03:00):
on the water, the other half is sitting in tanks.
Could we have done more? Yeah, there's three hundred liters
approximately of storage capacity that is used at marsten Point,
and there's another three hundred liters that when the Labor
government and the Labor Party in megan Woods close down
the refinery. Basically we've lost three hundred liters worth of
(03:23):
storage capacity. I mean it's a tragedy that they did that.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I guess you mean three hundred million leaders, is that right?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Sorry? Three hundred million letters? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
How much fuel should we ideally have in reserve? I mean,
it's all very well to talk about it after the fact,
but what do you think the ideal is?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Well, we took some professional advice and I want your
listeners to know that in twenty twenty four we published
a fairly hefty document which is basically a fuel resilience plan,
and we looked at various options and the advice that
we took on board were the amounts that we have
at the moment. Now. Look, there were people within the
(04:01):
community who did approach me and say, well, Shane, we
need a least days of diesel. Diesels always going to
be a major threat, and we didn't go over. We
didn't go over thirty days. I think it's for a
little country like yours and mine. If we keep closing
down too many institutions, we're going to weaken our resilience. Okay,
(04:24):
Labour closed down the refinery. There are threats about our
cement factory up and far at A balance has been
in the newspaper. Not sure if they're going to stay
or they going to go. New Zealand cannot afford. If
it wants to give an emphasis to resilience and security
to the industrialize, can you give.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Us a description of how that system works. You mentioned
that in terms of our reserves, half of them are
on the water and half of them are in tanks.
I got the sort of just that our reserves. It's
a bit like holding an IOU, but we don't actually
have it in our hot little hands all the time.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Okay, just give me a minute and a half.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
There's something we don't understand.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
We've got to credit manage almost Yeah, yeah, mate.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
I have had to learn about it in order to
do my job professionally. But in nineteen seventy four there
was an oil crisis. The OECD houses an organization called
the International Energy Agency. They run a collective system where
nations commit to buying tickets or underwriting an entitlement to
(05:37):
draw on strategic reserves of oil of fuel. They're only
called upon when there's a collective decision made by this
international organization to either release it or you have the
ability to cash in your chip and buy from that
strategic reserve. Now, we've very rarely used them, although, as
(06:01):
you no doubt saw reported even on your radio, Staate
New Zealand agreed to provide access to the market of
one point five one point six million liters. And that's
a small fraction of what we have got as an entitlement.
If things turn really dangerously awkward, and then we always
(06:28):
have about twenty nine thirty days worth of fuel bobbing
around coming from South Korea occasionally Malaysia and Singapore. And
then we have the fuel that's stored in New Zealand
about forty percent at Marston Point, not exclusively, and there
are a host of other areas around New Zealand where
(06:48):
the fuel importers store either diesel petrol, but aviation fuel
is largely stored at Marston Point and it's trainsport via
a great big pipe down to Auckland.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
So what's the story with South Korea. There's been talk
about whether they might create a difficulty for US.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Well, countries are looking at their own interests they're hoarding now.
To date, South Korea has not said it's going to
completely restrict exports. What it said it's going to reduce
the capacity to export back to what they were doing
I think this month last year. And we have a
(07:29):
very close working relationship obviously with a lot of the
Southeast Asian countries, and we have not been told by
anyone that as South Korea looks to curb the ability
to export, they're going to compromise our access. So our
foreign affairs officials, no doubt are working had a pretty
(07:50):
torrid pace with the governments that we rely upon to
ensure that the amity we enjoy with them isn't compromised.
But hey, the bottom line is, Southeast Asia imports a
heck of a lot of its fuel and various other
inputs from the Middle East, and the Middle East conflict
is compromising their ability to gain regular, arguably affordable access
(08:14):
to the inputs that we're all taken for granted.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
So, just to mention the dreaded words mout at Marsden
Point again was the point about Marsden Point is that
it wouldn't have been so much about us refining our fuel.
It's just we would have more on land right now
if that was going.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah, the life of Marsden Point. On rare occasions, it
did process New Zealand sourced oil, but the characteristics of
our oil off the coast of Tananaki are such that
it's processed overseas. Over the life of the refinery, it
drew feedstock from multiple sources. But the moment that the
(08:54):
refinery was closed down, I mean it was only done
up in twenty fifteen at huge costs. I went there
with John Key. He gave the speech, I gave a
speech as well. And then twenty nineteen twenty twenty, there
was a change in ownership and some of the shareholders
and then immediately associated with that change of ownership, drive
(09:17):
emerged rather than close it down in the twenty thirties
to bring the closure forward. That option was put before
Winston and I in twenty twenty, and we told the
Tasmanian lady who had been brought to close it down
under no circumstances whatsoever would we tolerate that we got
booted out of politics and the Labor Party approved of
(09:39):
the closure.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
So what steps is the government able to take right
now to strengthen the fuel security? You've mentioned the act
that officials will be pretty busy. What would it take
for you and I guess me therefore to feel reassured
about supply?
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Well, we do treat very seriously the fuel security plan
we have in place. We have enough fuel will as
per the envelope that we created. The fuel import companies
assure us. The Channel fuel importation facility at Marston Point
(10:20):
have assured us that vessels are on the sea. They're
coming to New Zealand with a mix of fuel. But
in the future, if we want to boost our resilience.
We have got to increase our capacity for storing more
in New Zealand now. From time to time, the Americans,
(10:43):
for example, have looked at Marsden Point and thought, wow,
it's quite an important facility depending on what their plans
are for the broader Pacific. But they've never taken it up.
They've never taken it up z Bless the cotton socks.
They have entered into an arrangement with Channel, which is
(11:04):
the old refined and they pay a fee each year,
and they've recently refurbished a massive tank. There are a
huge number of redundant tanks up there at Marsden Point
which still could be recapitalized. And I think this is
something as we come through this episode of uncertainty that
(11:25):
a future government's going to have to look at.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Do you know what sort of expenditure we're going to
have to make to implement what you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Well, we did get a report developed, and that report
had a stupendous figure between five and seven billion to
rebuild a refinery. I don't want to pluck a figure
as to what it's going to take to recapitalize the
existing tanks and it's really up to Goal and the
(11:58):
Marsden Point Fuel Company to establish what they pay per.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Year, what to take for you to suddenly go okay,
we've got a real problem here. I mean we've got
a problem obviously, but to worry about running out of fuel?
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Mate, you're talking to Shane Jones. I've never ever hid
from you, and you've been kind enough to have me
on your show from time to time. We are witnessing
the industrialization. I say this every month. We intervened and
worked with the Japanese to encourage them to not close
(12:34):
down the pop facility and took it or because that
would drive to the wall about fifteen sawmills. They are
now working with my officials out of Cardor buried in MBI,
which is a government department, as to how and what
do we do with the Japanese. Unfortunately, you've put some
money aside. We've witnessed a variety of other places closed
(12:57):
down because of the stupendously high costs of electricity, and
that's because of the gouging from the gentailor. I'll have
more to say about that when we get close to
the election, and I think Key weis are going to
ask themselves. Okay, you wanted globalization in the past, you
wanted just in time, and the Labor Party believed that
(13:19):
by closing down Marsden Point they could enjoy some of this.
This foolishness that that puerile Greta Thumberg somehow seems to
have influenced the Labor Party. So you're not going to
get any sense out of them unless we boost our
security and our resilience as a small, open trading nation,
(13:39):
We're going to continually face these challenges at a time
mate that every other nation that I can think of,
and our neck of the woods is placing a greater
accent on security.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I guess what I mean is when will you start
sweating on this particular issue.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Well, the Minister of Finance was on the telly this
morning on TV one and she basically can I agree
with what she said because we're taking the same advice
that there are different gray days, there are several gradations,
and at this stage, not only are we confident about
the amount of fuel that we've got, but it's not
only fuel, its inputs such as agricultural fertilizer. And my
(14:21):
fear in some parts of the world is that what
looks like a fuel crisis could easily turn into a
food production crisis, especially for those large countries up in
Southeast Asia, and they're going into a period of time
where they start to grow food now and it's difficult
for them to grow productively food if they cannot get
(14:41):
the inputs such as such as fertilizers. Now we're told
that our fertilizer stocks are all CARPI until April May.
So I think it's really important that when we have
these discussions, it's not just about oil. It's about the
inputs into the industries that we rely upon as we
(15:02):
import their products into our country to keep our industries
alive and nothing else. We're a food producing nasion.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Just lastly, what possibly not quite your portfolio, but related,
what do you make of Donald Trump urging other nations
to send ships to protect the Strait and does music?
I mean, obviously we have a stake in that sort
of move, I guess not directly. And what's your take
on that?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Oh, no, I've learned. I've learned in this role. I'll
leave those questions either to the Prime Minister or by
Orangeturra Winston Peters. We do want to see a cessation
of the hostilities. We want to see it wound back,
even if it was bound back in the very short term,
and I hope and pray that is the case. The
(15:51):
level of disruptiveness now is structural. It is going to
take quite a long time. Once you start to close
down gas oil wells and gas extraction facilities, you can't
really shutter them and then the next day or three
start them up again. And obviously there's a need for
a recapitalization of damaged infrastructure up there. And although people
(16:16):
might say, oh, okay, it's only twenty percent of the
oil's production and we can get it from elsewhere, the
fact of the matter is that for Southeast Asia it's
eighty or ninety percent of their inputs. And hello, hello,
we've got an enormous amount of reliance upon those markets
remaining buoyant to take all the tucker, the goods and
(16:37):
services we sell up there. And for example, where do
we get our coal from wet from Indonesia. Where do
we draw a lot of our industrial produce for our
products from it? We get them out of Southeast Asia,
Which is why when you lose something like the one
Grace cement factory and then you're relying on countries that
are starting to hoard things because they're worried about their
(16:58):
own resilience. They soon get to a point where they
have to look after themselves rather than five million people
down at the end of the railway track. That's why
we've got to start focusing on our own resilience.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Hey, Shane, thanks very much for your time this afternoon,
and really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News
Talks edb weekends from three pm, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News talks 'b.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
So yeah, prices are up at the pump. Auto shops
are selling out of Jerry cans, and we've seen reports
of the very large thousand liter tanks being filled up
at BP. Look, let's raise the questions around whether we
could have avoided this with the Marsden Point. A little
bit academic, but the question around New Zealand's fuel security
is one that's on many minds. And of course New
Zealand would still be reliant on fuel inputs, on inputs
(00:32):
to meet fuel needs, but would that have been changed
with the if we still had Marsden Point rocking and rolling? Anyway,
those questions and more with the Associate Minister for Energy,
Shane Jones joins me.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Now, good afternoon, Hey, gooday folks, greetings, good a, Hey.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
What do you make of the media coverage so far?
Have we all been a bit panicked?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Well, I'm very disappointed about the remarks that have been
ascribed to gull. Not once have a single fuel importer
conveyed to the government that we are facing shortage emergency situations.
(01:13):
They have all told the officials, myself and a variety
of others. Mate, that the fuel importers are living within
the statutory limits that we created after the Fuel Security
Plan was put in place as a consequence of the
New Zealand First Coalition Agreement. So the first thing I'm
doing tomorrow is finding out from my officials why is
(01:35):
the media reporting that Goal feeding a sense of frenzy?
And someone needs to talk to Goal because they've either
not told me the truth or they're building the lily
with the public. We can't have them both. It's got
to be one message. You can't be talking about both
sides of your God.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Is it a chicken in the egg thing that you
know the media whipped it up and then everyone rushed
to the fuel tanks and all of a sudden Goal
like a couple of our sites around out it. Could
it be a sort of a halfway house in terms
of the drama of the whole situation.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Well, mate, let's just get to the facts tomorrow after
fuel officials or indeed the Communist Commission call up someone
with some authority called gull up and say, okay, what
exactly are the facts? Do you have people that are
under capitalized, do you have a logistics problem? Or have
you not told the truth to the government in terms
(02:30):
of their statutory obligations. No, I'm very cross with them.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So where are we actually at right now? How serious
is the situation then?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Well, you can look at it one of two ways.
Is it a short term blip where we have to
pay a risk premium or does it reflect a structural change?
And I think for us as Key, we yes, we've
got the fifty day fuel access arrangement. Half of it's
(03:00):
on the water, the other half is sitting in tanks.
Could we have done more? Yeah, there's three hundred liters
approximately of storage capacity that is used at marsten Point,
and there's another three hundred liters that when the Labor
government and the Labor Party in megan Woods close down
the refinery. Basically we've lost three hundred liters worth of
(03:23):
storage capacity. I mean it's a tragedy that they did that.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I guess you mean three hundred million leaders, is that right?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Sorry? Three hundred million letters? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
How much fuel should we ideally have in reserve? I mean,
it's all very well to talk about it after the fact,
but what do you think the ideal is?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Well, we took some professional advice and I want your
listeners to know that in twenty twenty four we published
a fairly hefty document which is basically a fuel resilience plan,
and we looked at various options and the advice that
we took on board were the amounts that we have
at the moment. Now. Look, there were people within the
(04:01):
community who did approach me and say, well, Shane, we
need a least days of diesel. Diesels always going to
be a major threat, and we didn't go over. We
didn't go over thirty days. I think it's for a
little country like yours and mine. If we keep closing
down too many institutions, we're going to weaken our resilience. Okay,
(04:24):
Labour closed down the refinery. There are threats about our
cement factory up and far at A balance has been
in the newspaper. Not sure if they're going to stay
or they going to go. New Zealand cannot afford. If
it wants to give an emphasis to resilience and security
to the industrialize, can you give.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Us a description of how that system works. You mentioned
that in terms of our reserves, half of them are
on the water and half of them are in tanks.
I got the sort of just that our reserves. It's
a bit like holding an IOU, but we don't actually
have it in our hot little hands all the time.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Okay, just give me a minute and a half.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
There's something we don't understand.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
We've got to credit manage almost Yeah, yeah, mate.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
I have had to learn about it in order to
do my job professionally. But in nineteen seventy four there
was an oil crisis. The OECD houses an organization called
the International Energy Agency. They run a collective system where
nations commit to buying tickets or underwriting an entitlement to
(05:37):
draw on strategic reserves of oil of fuel. They're only
called upon when there's a collective decision made by this
international organization to either release it or you have the
ability to cash in your chip and buy from that
strategic reserve. Now, we've very rarely used them, although, as
(06:01):
you no doubt saw reported even on your radio, Staate
New Zealand agreed to provide access to the market of
one point five one point six million liters. And that's
a small fraction of what we have got as an entitlement.
If things turn really dangerously awkward, and then we always
(06:28):
have about twenty nine thirty days worth of fuel bobbing
around coming from South Korea occasionally Malaysia and Singapore. And
then we have the fuel that's stored in New Zealand
about forty percent at Marston Point, not exclusively, and there
are a host of other areas around New Zealand where
(06:48):
the fuel importers store either diesel petrol, but aviation fuel
is largely stored at Marston Point and it's trainsport via
a great big pipe down to Auckland.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
So what's the story with South Korea. There's been talk
about whether they might create a difficulty for US.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Well, countries are looking at their own interests they're hoarding now.
To date, South Korea has not said it's going to
completely restrict exports. What it said it's going to reduce
the capacity to export back to what they were doing
I think this month last year. And we have a
(07:29):
very close working relationship obviously with a lot of the
Southeast Asian countries, and we have not been told by
anyone that as South Korea looks to curb the ability
to export, they're going to compromise our access. So our
foreign affairs officials, no doubt are working had a pretty
(07:50):
torrid pace with the governments that we rely upon to
ensure that the amity we enjoy with them isn't compromised.
But hey, the bottom line is, Southeast Asia imports a
heck of a lot of its fuel and various other
inputs from the Middle East, and the Middle East conflict
is compromising their ability to gain regular, arguably affordable access
(08:14):
to the inputs that we're all taken for granted.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
So, just to mention the dreaded words mout at Marsden
Point again was the point about Marsden Point is that
it wouldn't have been so much about us refining our fuel.
It's just we would have more on land right now
if that was going.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah, the life of Marsden Point. On rare occasions, it
did process New Zealand sourced oil, but the characteristics of
our oil off the coast of Tananaki are such that
it's processed overseas. Over the life of the refinery, it
drew feedstock from multiple sources. But the moment that the
(08:54):
refinery was closed down, I mean it was only done
up in twenty fifteen at huge costs. I went there
with John Key. He gave the speech, I gave a
speech as well. And then twenty nineteen twenty twenty, there
was a change in ownership and some of the shareholders
and then immediately associated with that change of ownership, drive
(09:17):
emerged rather than close it down in the twenty thirties
to bring the closure forward. That option was put before
Winston and I in twenty twenty, and we told the
Tasmanian lady who had been brought to close it down
under no circumstances whatsoever would we tolerate that we got
booted out of politics and the Labor Party approved of
(09:39):
the closure.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
So what steps is the government able to take right
now to strengthen the fuel security? You've mentioned the act
that officials will be pretty busy. What would it take
for you and I guess me therefore to feel reassured
about supply?
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Well, we do treat very seriously the fuel security plan
we have in place. We have enough fuel will as
per the envelope that we created. The fuel import companies
assure us. The Channel fuel importation facility at Marston Point
(10:20):
have assured us that vessels are on the sea. They're
coming to New Zealand with a mix of fuel. But
in the future, if we want to boost our resilience.
We have got to increase our capacity for storing more
in New Zealand now. From time to time, the Americans,
(10:43):
for example, have looked at Marsden Point and thought, wow,
it's quite an important facility depending on what their plans
are for the broader Pacific. But they've never taken it up.
They've never taken it up z Bless the cotton socks.
They have entered into an arrangement with Channel, which is
(11:04):
the old refined and they pay a fee each year,
and they've recently refurbished a massive tank. There are a
huge number of redundant tanks up there at Marsden Point
which still could be recapitalized. And I think this is
something as we come through this episode of uncertainty that
(11:25):
a future government's going to have to look at.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Do you know what sort of expenditure we're going to
have to make to implement what you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Well, we did get a report developed, and that report
had a stupendous figure between five and seven billion to
rebuild a refinery. I don't want to pluck a figure
as to what it's going to take to recapitalize the
existing tanks and it's really up to Goal and the
(11:58):
Marsden Point Fuel Company to establish what they pay per.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Year, what to take for you to suddenly go okay,
we've got a real problem here. I mean we've got
a problem obviously, but to worry about running out of fuel?
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Mate, you're talking to Shane Jones. I've never ever hid
from you, and you've been kind enough to have me
on your show from time to time. We are witnessing
the industrialization. I say this every month. We intervened and
worked with the Japanese to encourage them to not close
(12:34):
down the pop facility and took it or because that
would drive to the wall about fifteen sawmills. They are
now working with my officials out of Cardor buried in MBI,
which is a government department, as to how and what
do we do with the Japanese. Unfortunately, you've put some
money aside. We've witnessed a variety of other places closed
(12:57):
down because of the stupendously high costs of electricity, and
that's because of the gouging from the gentailor. I'll have
more to say about that when we get close to
the election, and I think Key weis are going to
ask themselves. Okay, you wanted globalization in the past, you
wanted just in time, and the Labor Party believed that
(13:19):
by closing down Marsden Point they could enjoy some of this.
This foolishness that that puerile Greta Thumberg somehow seems to
have influenced the Labor Party. So you're not going to
get any sense out of them unless we boost our
security and our resilience as a small, open trading nation,
(13:39):
We're going to continually face these challenges at a time
mate that every other nation that I can think of,
and our neck of the woods is placing a greater
accent on security.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I guess what I mean is when will you start
sweating on this particular issue.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Well, the Minister of Finance was on the telly this
morning on TV one and she basically can I agree
with what she said because we're taking the same advice
that there are different gray days, there are several gradations,
and at this stage, not only are we confident about
the amount of fuel that we've got, but it's not
only fuel, its inputs such as agricultural fertilizer. And my
(14:21):
fear in some parts of the world is that what
looks like a fuel crisis could easily turn into a
food production crisis, especially for those large countries up in
Southeast Asia, and they're going into a period of time
where they start to grow food now and it's difficult
for them to grow productively food if they cannot get
(14:41):
the inputs such as such as fertilizers. Now we're told
that our fertilizer stocks are all CARPI until April May.
So I think it's really important that when we have
these discussions, it's not just about oil. It's about the
inputs into the industries that we rely upon as we
(15:02):
import their products into our country to keep our industries
alive and nothing else. We're a food producing nasion.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Just lastly, what possibly not quite your portfolio, but related,
what do you make of Donald Trump urging other nations
to send ships to protect the Strait and does music?
I mean, obviously we have a stake in that sort
of move, I guess not directly. And what's your take
on that?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Oh, no, I've learned. I've learned in this role. I'll
leave those questions either to the Prime Minister or by
Orangeturra Winston Peters. We do want to see a cessation
of the hostilities. We want to see it wound back,
even if it was bound back in the very short term,
and I hope and pray that is the case. The
(15:51):
level of disruptiveness now is structural. It is going to
take quite a long time. Once you start to close
down gas oil wells and gas extraction facilities, you can't
really shutter them and then the next day or three
start them up again. And obviously there's a need for
a recapitalization of damaged infrastructure up there. And although people
(16:16):
might say, oh, okay, it's only twenty percent of the
oil's production and we can get it from elsewhere, the
fact of the matter is that for Southeast Asia it's
eighty or ninety percent of their inputs. And hello, hello,
we've got an enormous amount of reliance upon those markets
remaining buoyant to take all the tucker, the goods and
(16:37):
services we sell up there. And for example, where do
we get our coal from wet from Indonesia. Where do
we draw a lot of our industrial produce for our
products from it? We get them out of Southeast Asia,
Which is why when you lose something like the one
Grace cement factory and then you're relying on countries that
are starting to hoard things because they're worried about their
(16:58):
own resilience. They soon get to a point where they
have to look after themselves rather than five million people
down at the end of the railway track. That's why
we've got to start focusing on our own resilience.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Hey, Shane, thanks very much for your time this afternoon,
and really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News
Talks edb weekends from three pm, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
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