John Anderson: Conversations Nothing Left In The Tank: Australia's Fuel And Food Crisis | Dr. John Coyne
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Mar 20, 2026 Dr. John Coyne, inaugural director of ASPI’s National Security Program and national security analyst, discusses why diesel and urea shortages threaten Australian agriculture. He traces how globalization and just-in-time policy created vulnerabilities. The conversation covers reserve shortfalls, refinery limits, on-farm storage challenges, cascading supply risks and tough policy tradeoffs needed to restore resilience.
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Australia Drifted Away From IEA Reserve Practice
- The IEA framework expecting 90 days of fuel reserves was effectively abandoned once Australia ceased being self-sufficient.
- From about 2010 we lost self-sufficiency yet failed to rebuild strategic stocks or top up releases like the 2022 crude drawdown.
Decide Who Will Pay To Rebuild Fuel Resilience
- Governments must decide who pays for rebuilding strategic fuel resilience: consumers, companies, or taxpayers.
- Any policy will require tradeoffs across budgets and likely unpopular political choices to fund reserves or subsidies.
Price Spikes Are Turning Into Temporal Supply Shortages
- Current crisis is first a price shock before a supply shock; spot prices and buying behaviour (earlier refills) are rapidly drawing stocks down.
- Diesel rose from about $1.80 to $2.60 per litre in weeks, stressing temporal supply needs for harvest.