Photo: LDR / Northern Advocate / Michael Cunningham
Officials have received a draft report into re-establishing the Marsden Point oil refinery in Northland.
New Zealand First wants the refinery reopened after it shut in 2022, when shareholding oil companies substituted importing for refining.
The study by two consultancies, Castalia and Envisory, began mid-year under the government’s coalition agreements. It will feed into a wider report due next year on the security of the country’s fuel supplies overall.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) said it was working on a draft of the interim report.
“The study includes the milestone of an interim report on re-establishing the Marsden Point Refinery, which is due by the end of October 2024,” it said on Monday.
The fuel import operator at Marsden Point, Channel Infrastructure, has been reported saying reopening the refinery would cost billions of dollars and take years.
Parallel to this, the government on Monday asked for feedback on increasing diesel reserves to 28 days’ stock, up from the 21 days the previous government instructed, to apply from next January.
“I am not satisfied that 21 days’ cover for diesel is enough,” Associate Energy Minister Shane Jones said in a statement.
Also, there was not enough cover if jet fuel supplies were disrupted: “Little progress has been made” since 2017 when a digger damaged the main jet fuel pipeline from the north to Auckland Airport, Jones said.
Jet fuel storage companies were told back then to build more storage near the airport, but have not.
The new plan was to seek Cabinet agreement on regulations to mandate enough jet fuel to be held near Auckland Airport.
Storage at Marsden Pt, meanwhile, was expected to double under a joint venture between Channel Infrastructure and Z Energy.
MBIE recently introduced the regulations for complying with the minimum fuel reserves obligations. As it stands, these set reserve minimums of 28 days of petrol, 24 days of jet fuel and 21 days of diesel consumption on average each month.
