A service station in a country town famous for its apples has stopped selling fuel over fears it would make national headlines for ripping off locals.
The owner of the only petrol station in Batlow, 430km southwest of Sydney, says they stopped selling fuel because residents would have to pay up to $3 a litre.
‘If I did that, I’ll be the headline in your newspaper,’ the service station owner told the Daily Telegraph of the exorbitant prices.
‘I don’t want to be in the bad books so the best thing for me is to not sell fuel at all.’
Another fuel distributor nearby said he was quoted $3.20 a litre for bulk diesel to be delivered to his servo after paying just $1.70 only days earlier.
‘We knew there might be some movement once things started heating up overseas, but nothing like what happened,’ he said.
‘I had one load where the next delivery was 84 cents a litre higher than the previous one. I’ve never seen anything like that.’
Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has choked the flow of about a fifth of the world’s oil, sparking fears of shortages around the world.
The service station at Batlow, in southern NSW, has shut down due to the cost of fuel
Snowy Valleys Mayor Julia Ham has invited Chris Bowen to visit Bartlow to see what the country’s fuel crisis is doing to small towns
And like some other country towns, Batlow has been especially hard hit by shortages with reports of Aussies filling jerry cans in an effort to stockpile fuel.
The town, which is home to 1,270 people, has about 50 apple growers in the district and supplies 10 per cent of the Australian apple crop.
Snowy Valleys Mayor Julia Ham said locals are driving 25 minutes to Tumut to get their fuel which, as of Friday morning, was selling for $2.27 a litre.
Local apple grower Greg Mouat said while he and fellow growers were focusing on the harvest, worries about fuel security were still looming large.
‘The last thing we want is significantly increased costs. Our product hasn’t been making as much money as we’d like over the past few years, so extra costs are the last thing we need,’ he said.
Independent Member for Wagga Wagga Dr Joe McGirr has written to Bowen requesting he help restore fuel supplies to Batlow.
‘It is unacceptable that the people of Batlow are denied critical fuel supplies and the Federal Government must act immediately to restore those supplies,’ Dr McGirr wrote.
‘The owner of the station is trying to do the right thing by his community but his hands are tied by circumstances beyond his control, and the people of Batlow are suffering as a result.’
Rural towns like Batlow are running out of fuel and residents are being forced to drive to other towns to fill up
Batlow apple growers Kris and Greg Mouat are worried about fuel security
‘This situation would not be tolerated in metropolitan communities, and it should not be acceptable in Batlow.’
It was reported earlier this week that independent fuel suppliers such as Bartranz Petroleum had claimed the crisis was not a supply issue, but a distribution problem.
Major oil companies have stopped supplying petrol to non-contract fuel distributors, many of which supply agricultural communities.
‘It’s become apparent that the four major oil companies, Ampol, Shell, BP and Viva, have the fuel supply but are keeping it for their inner-city retail sites and their contractors,’ Bartranz Petroleum owner Gretta Barton said.
The Australian Institute of Petroleum CEO Dr Malcolm Roberts told the Daily Mail that many independent fuel distributors couldn’t get fuel from the major oil companies because they didn’t have a secure contract with them.
After earlier insisting there was no need for Australians to panic, Climate Minister Chris Bowen on Thursday told parliament he could not promise the nation would avoid a fuel shortage, declaring a national crisis and moving ahead with releasing fuel from the strategic reserve.
He also relaxed petrol rules on Thursday to allow a Queensland refinery to produce fuel with a higher level of sulphur, which he claimed would produce an extra 100million litres for regional areas per month.
While 100million litres sounds like a big number, in reality, it’s only an extra two days’ worth of fuel.