Viva Energy has assured the public that a fire at its Geelong refinery in Corio, Victoria, will not affect fuel supply or lead to higher prices for consumers. The blaze, which broke out on Wednesday night due to a gas leak from faulty equipment in an alkylation unit, burned for 13 hours before being extinguished. The facility is now operating at 80 percent capacity as safety checks continue, and it may take weeks to return to full production.
Chief executive Scott Wyatt stated on Friday that the incident would not impact supply to the Victorian market and that any costs would be absorbed by refinery operations, not passed on to the community. The NRMA supported this view, noting that global factors, not local events, determine fuel prices. NRMA spokesperson Peter Khoury said prices actually fell globally overnight and predicted unleaded fuel could drop below two dollars per litre this weekend.
The federal government has arranged for Viva Energy to purchase 570,000 barrels of diesel from South Korea and Brunei, totaling about 100 million litres. However, experts note that Australia consumes nearly 100 million litres of diesel daily, making this a temporary measure. Professor Hussein Dia from Swinburne University described Australia as a diesel economy, with 60 percent of liquid fuels being diesel, but said a reduction in local refinery capacity would not cause an immediate shortage as long as imports continue.
The Corio refinery, which supplies about 10 percent of Australia's fuel, has a history of incidents. Established by Shell in 1954, it experienced a deadly fire in 1961. Since Viva Energy acquired the site in 2014, it has faced fines from WorkSafe Victoria for worker exposure to toxic acid vapour in 2017. In 2019, emergency services were called over a dozen times for incidents, and in January 2024, a flare incident occurred due to cooling pump failure from seaweed blockage. The cause of this week's fire remains under investigation.
