Western Australia is considering building a fuel stockpile to strengthen energy security and supply chains throughout the state. 

‘This would be additional volumes of diesel purchased by the state government and held in storage for times when it’s tough and when we’re seeing challenges in those supply chains,’ Energy Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said on Sunday.

‘This would be solely for West Australians and be directed at the discretion of the state government to areas that need it most.’

Those areas would include agricultural regions at the end of supply chains, mining operations and remote communities that rely on diesel to power generators.

The government didn’t reveal costs, though Sanderson said talks were ongoing for a reserve ‘in the millions of litres’.

‘This will help support that spot market (and) it will support those end of supply chain areas in the Great Southern, in the Wheatbelt and in the Goldfields, where they’ve had more difficulty getting that fuel (since the fuel crisis started).’

WA’s strategic stockpile would be in addition to the national fuel reserve, which the state believes it would still be able to access in the event of another crisis.

‘It is a requirement for states to receive their fair share,’ Sanderson said.

The current fuel crisis exposed that some suppliers failed to maintain any of their national fuel stock obligation in WA. 

‘Viva and Ampol, for example … It’s in Queensland,’ Sanderson said.

The focus was initially on diesel, Sanderson said, with WA using about a quarter of all supplies in Australia.

WA Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas backed the proposal but said it was light on detail.

‘How much it would cost, whether it would be government-owned or come about through a much closer working relationship between the state government and the suppliers, remains to be seen,’ he said.

‘We need our own reserves, and we need to be able to establish a way in which Western Australians and WA industry aren’t compromised when we have a global event like this in the future.’

He said WA should not be disadvantaged because of its remoteness from other states.

WA’s move comes as Queensland moves to produce its own oil for the first time in almost five decades.

The Crisafulli government claims the Taroom Trough could become Australia’s first new oil field since the 1970s, offering domestically sourced fuel at a time of mounting global instability driven by the Middle East conflict. 

Last week, Premier David Crisafulli unveiled a new Taroom Trough Development Plan, designed to accelerate infrastructure and streamline both approvals and environmental assessments to unlock the basin’s full resources.

Oil is already flowing from the project. 

Shell is pumping around 200 barrels of high-grade crude daily, refined into diesel at iOR’s Eromanga facility and supplied directly to Australia’s fuel market. 

‘Unlocking the Taroom Trough is critical to locking in future national fuel security,’ Crisafulli said.

‘It’s there, now it’s up to all levels of government to get it flowing.’

Casting the project as a matter of national security, the Premier argued Australia should never again risk fuel shortages due to international turmoil.