Markets 
The Queensland government will open up six parcels of land at the state’s major ports for fuel storage facilities, with the potential for new refineries to be built by the companies that operate them.
Under the plan, government-owned land at ports in Brisbane, Townsville, Mackay, Gladstone, Bundaberg and Abbot Point in Bowen would be used to build fuel storage tanks by private companies.
Premier David Crisafulli announced the plan on Sunday, and said the government was now open to expressions of interest for its new Accelerating Fuel Infrastructure Program.
“By doing that we can increase the sovereign capability of us as a state,” the premier.
Expressions of interest, to be made to the Coordinator General, opened on Sunday morning.
Malcolm Roberts from the Australian Institute of Petroleum – which represents BP, Ampol, Mobil and Viva Energy – said companies would expect government support for building and storing fuel.
“In the past, governments have offered capital grant programs to assist with possible storage, in particular the federal government,” he said.
“You make money selling fuel, you don’t make money storing it.”
Crisafulli would not be drawn on whether the state would offer financial incentives, but said by offering the land for the facilities, it was giving the market an opportunity to fill a need.
“What you’ve seen is how in a crisis, a willingness for the nation as a whole to step up to the plate. Let’s put our state in the box seat,” he said.
“I don’t see a world where in 10 years’ time this country will ever be at the end of a global supply chain with only one month of diesel sovereign capability.”
Both Crisafulli and Roberts said Australia needed to be open to building new refineries, but they gave little detail about whether this would occur through this plan.
Australia currently only has two major refineries, one of which is in Lytton, at the Port of Brisbane, and run by Ampol.
The fuel storage plan comes as the state and federal governments continue to lock horns over Taroom Trough, an oil field about 300 kilometres west of Brisbane.
On Sunday, the premier again called for the federal government to fast-track the controversial project – something that can’t be done under environmental laws passed last year.
“That would be the greatest signal to the market that these projects can occur,” he said.
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