Overview
- Australia, which on Thursday agreed to underwrite Ampol and Viva Energy’s spot purchases at above‑normal prices, is now seeking extra cargoes in leader‑level talks in Singapore.
- Singapore supplies about 55% of Australia’s petrol and 26% of refined fuels overall, while Australia provides roughly one‑third of Singapore’s LNG, a trade balance Albanese aims to use to keep fuel flowing.
- Canberra opened about $2 billion in emergency finance and gained authority to direct where new shipments go, with officials prioritising regions and farms that faced recent outages and saying stocks look secure into late May.
- The crunch stems from damaged Middle East energy sites and restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and even with a two‑week ceasefire the long voyage times for new supply mean refineries cannot recover quickly.
- Albanese also spoke with China’s Premier Li Qiang to increase government‑to‑government contact on energy security, though China has limited refined fuel exports to meet domestic demand.