(1) Forward Orders
Press conference, Sydney, New South Wales
23 May 2026
CHRIS BOWEN: Thanks for coming, everyone. I’m very pleased today to give the weekly Saturday petrol update.
… We have 48 ships on the way to Australia, as we speak, for fuel deliveries. And we have 3.4 billion litres of fuel locked in to be delivered over the next four weeks – that’s 1.8 billion litres worth of diesel, 617 billion litres worth of petrol, 294 million litres of jet fuel and 582 million litres of crude oil.
https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/bowen/transcripts/press-conference-sydney-new-south-wales-4
1,800+617+294+582= 3,293 ML. That is without extra orders
That allows us to update the graph from the previous week:
Fig 1: Forward orders excluding extra orders
Forward orders for all fuels and also crude oil declined by 12% compared to 16 May and 26% compared to the peak on 9 May.
So how about adding the extra orders? The baseline for 16th March was:
Press conference – Sydney
Transcript
Saturday 16 May 2026
The Hon Anthony Albanese MP: Now, yesterday we announced an additional three cargoes have been secured for diesel coming to Australia. That brings a total to 14 and 700 million litres of additional fuel coming to Australia as a result of the measures that were put in place, making these purchases on the spot market.
https://www.pm.gov.au/media/press-conference-sydney-16-may-26
Press conference, Sydney, New South Wales
23 May 2026
CHRIS BOWEN: … I’m pleased to announce this morning, two more [extra, EFA supported] deliveries have been locked in – 50 million litres of diesel. That will be delivered to Kwinana, the import facility, as a buffer for Western Australia in coming weeks and months, and 50 million litres more of jet fuel…..this is an extra 50 million litres of jet fuel that will be delivered to Port Botany as an extra buffer for the East Coast.
That brings the total EFA supported imports to Australia to 800 million litres – 100 of which has already arrived and is already providing a buffer, and the other 700 million litres will arrive in coming weeks. This has been really important and is in addition to the 100 million letters of JetFuel Extra that the Prime Minister arranged to be delivered from China that was announced during the week.”
https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/bowen/transcripts/press-conference-sydney-new-south-wales-4
Let’s put all the extra orders into a table:
Fig 2: Extra fuel orders supported by EFA.
Note 800 ML running total minus 100 ML = 700 ML balance
It seems the volume of each order/cargo is around 50 ML (the size of a Medium Range tanker)
The Minister did not say which order has already arrived. It is assumed it was diesel orders 1-2.
In a graph:
Fig 3: Forward orders including extra orders
They dropped by 10% compared to 16 May and 21% compared to the peak on 9 May.
Confusion:
In the above quote the Minister said that the 2 new extra orders (50 ML diesel and 50 ML jet fuel) are in addition to what the PM arranged from China during the week (before the Saturday 23 May press conference). The weblink is here:
Joint media release: Albanese Labor Government helps secure more jet fuel and fertiliser
19 May
After discussions between Australia and China, including between the Prime Minister and China’s Premier Li, the Albanese Labor Government has helped to secure three shipments of jet fuel, totaling more than 600,000 barrels or about 100 million litres.
..
The three cargos of jet fuel from China are expected to arrive from early June, and are in addition to the 600,000 barrels or about 100 million litres of jet fuel already secured through the Fuel and Fertiliser Security Facility.
https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/bowen/media-releases/joint-media-release-albanese-labor-government-helps-secure-more-jet-fuel-and-fertiliser
What happened to this extra order as it was not included in the 800 ML balance (Fig 2)?
This 3 -cargo 100 ML jet-fuel order should have come after order/cargo 14. But it didn’t. Was it:
- Cancelled (blocked by sudden export restrictions)
- Replaced by the 100 ML orders for diesel and jet-fuel announced in this 23 May press conference
Take your pick. The Minister should – as already pointed out in the previous post – number or label the orders so that there are no mix-ups in repetitive, amended or overlapping announcements.
None of the journos noticed.
Fig 4: Ships on the way dropped slightly
A downward trend is undeniable. If the number of tankers arriving in ports drops off, we are in trouble.
Tankers arriving and departing in Sydney
https://crudeoilpeak.info/tankers-arriving-and-departing-in-sydney
(2) MSO Update
This is the Energy Minister’s MSO update of Sat 23 May for the data on 19 May:
Fig 5: MSO graph with data on 19 May 26
Diesel stock is 3,515 ML. This happens to be EXACTLY the physical capacity of 90 onshore tank farms of 3,700 ML minus 5% for safe keeping. Take your pick:
a) Purely coincidental
b) Actual number is higher, but limit has been detected and correction done
c) If onshore tanks are full that is operationally not possible as arriving tankers would not be able to offload their cargo
d) A lot of diesel is not safely and quickly accessible in onshore tanks but floating offshore in tankers plying the seas inside the EEZ
Fig 6: Comparison 19 May with 3 March
Option (d) is what was suspected in the previous post. Now it is clear. The estimate of the 25% offshore percentage comes from comparing end of March APS stock volumes with the MSO data on 31 March. Beginning of March the ratio was 20%. This graph shows it:
Fig 7: Diesel stock on upward trend due to extra ordinary efforts of the Prime Minister
If a country’s manager has to be pre-occupied with organizing tankers – a mundane task in ordinary times – then that explains perhaps why the budget design and the tax changes were not well thought through which triggered community resistance. That is why the Energy Minister was asked many questions in the above press conference on issues outside his portfolio.