Just before 11pm on Wednesday, residents in Geelong's north heard a series of explosions and saw the night sky light up. By the time Fire Rescue Victoria crews reached the Viva Energy refinery in Corio, the mogas unit, the section of the plant that produces motor gasoline, was already a major incident. By breakfast this morning, every petrol station in Victoria was running on a clock that nobody has put a number on.

The fire is contained to the plant where it started but is not yet under control. All workers are accounted for and there are no injuries reported, which is the only piece of good news in this story. Energy Minister Chris Bowen confirmed this morning that petrol production is the worst affected, while diesel and jet fuel continue at reduced rates. His exact words: "It will impact on production at this point, petrol rather than diesel and jet fuel." A worker on site told The Nightly that repairs would take "weeks at a minimum." Nobody at Viva Energy has put a firmer number on it yet, and that itself tells you something.

The Geelong refinery processes 120,000 barrels of crude a day. It supplies more than half of Victoria's fuel and roughly a tenth of Australia's. It is one of only two refineries we have left, the other being Ampol's Lytton plant in Brisbane. When you read those numbers back, the scale of what happened last night becomes obvious. A single piece of plant in regional Victoria has been knocked off line, and it represents 10 percent of the fuel a country of 27 million people uses to move itself around.

How We Got Down to Two Refineries

Going back two decades, Australia had eight refineries. The closures came in waves. Caltex shut Kurnell in 2014. BP closed Bulwer Island in Brisbane the same year. Mobil shut Altona in 2021. BP closed Kwinana in WA the same year. Each closure was rationalised at the time as a commercial decision in a tough global refining market, and each one was true on its own terms. Cumulatively, they left us with two plants and a 90 percent reliance on imported refined fuel from Singapore, South Korea and India.

The federal government noticed. In 2021 it created the Fuel Security Services Payment to keep Geelong and Lytton running. Last month, with global supply already tight from the Middle East situation I wrote about earlier this month, Canberra extended the scheme and lifted the margin support by 3.6 cents per litre. Geelong was committed to operate until 30 June 2028. Lytton runs until 30 June 2027. The whole point of the FSSP was to make sure we still had domestic refining capacity for moments exactly like this one.

What the policy did not anticipate was that the moment would arrive while we were already running thin on every other front.

What Bowen Did and Did Not Say

The Energy Minister's choice of words this morning was careful. He said petrol is the worst affected, with diesel and jet fuel "at reduced levels" rather than offline. That distinction matters because it tells you something about which units burned. Mogas, short for motor gasoline, is the unleaded stream that ends up in your tank as ULP, E10 and the premium grades. Diesel and jet fuel are produced on different units in different parts of the plant. So diesel buyers and the airlines have a problem, but a manageable one. Petrol drivers have a bigger problem.

What Bowen did not say is how long. He did not give a restart timeline. He did not put a number on the supply gap. He did not announce reserves being released, because as I explained in a previous piece, we do not really have reserves to release in any meaningful sense. What we have is a regulatory minimum on private stockholdings that the government can lower in a crisis. That lever has not been pulled yet, but it is the only one available.

The other thing worth noting is that Viva itself has been quiet. The company has confirmed the incident and the safety status of its workers. It has not yet released a damage assessment or production restart estimate. In an industry where every cent per barrel moves the share price, silence usually means the answer is worse than the market is currently pricing.

What This Means at the Bowser

Here is what motorists should expect over the next few weeks. A Victorian filling a 60 litre tank should plan for 10 to 25 cents per litre more on unleaded for at least the next month. That is six to fifteen dollars per fill, and it will compound for households running two cars. The increase will not show up evenly. Independent servos and outer suburban stations, which buy on shorter contracts, will move first. Major chains with deeper supply arrangements will hold for a few days before adjusting.

By next weekend, expect the gap between the cheapest and dearest station in your suburb to widen sharply, repeating the two speed market pattern Melbourne saw last week only with the volume turned up. Premium grades will widen first because PULP95 and 98 draw on a tighter supply chain than basic unleaded. If your car says "premium recommended" rather than "premium required," now is the week to find out the difference.

Diesel buyers have a buffer this week. The Geelong fire is in the petrol unit and the diesel hydrotreater appears unaffected. But two things could change that quickly. If the fire spreads or damages adjacent infrastructure, the picture changes overnight. And if wholesalers reroute imported diesel cargoes to plug the petrol gap, retail diesel will follow petrol upwards within a fortnight. Worth tracking.

The honest tactical advice for the next 72 hours: fill up today if your tank is below half. Use real time price tools to find the cheapest station within ten kilometres of you, because the spreads are about to matter again. And do not panic buy. Panic buying is how you turn a manageable supply problem into actual queues at the bowser, and we have neither the storage nor the temperament for that.

The Bigger Picture That Should Bother You

Here is the part that should bother you regardless of what happens at your local servo this week. We have built a fuel system with no margin for error, and we keep being surprised when error happens.

Australia maintains roughly 36 days of fuel supply. The International Energy Agency requires its members to hold 90. Japan, which actually does, released emergency reserves within 72 hours of the Hormuz situation last month. We do not have reserves to release in that sense. What we have is a regulatory minimum on private stockholdings that the government can lower in a crisis. That is not a strategic reserve. That is permission to run the tank lower.

Now overlay last night's fire on that picture. We have two refineries. One of them just lost its petrol unit indefinitely. The IEA reserves are not coming. The strategic stockpile we do not really have is not being released because there is nothing to release. Lytton will lift output where it can, and the four import majors will redirect Singapore and South Korean cargoes already on the water. Wholesale prices will spike, retailers will pass through what they can, and the market will eventually clear at a higher level. Three to six weeks from now, depending on how quickly Viva can rebuild the mogas unit, things will normalise. That is the optimistic scenario, and it assumes nothing else goes wrong.

The Lytton refinery is now the single point of failure for a third of a continent. That sentence should be impossible in a country with our wealth, our coastline and our energy resources. It is not impossible, because we chose this. Eight refineries became two, and now two is functionally one until the mogas unit at Geelong comes back. The fire did not cause that fragility. It just made it visible at 11pm on a Wednesday.

What to Do This Week

The fire will be put out. The refinery will, eventually, be repaired. Insurance will cover Viva's immediate loss. None of that is the question worth asking.

The question worth asking is why a country with our wealth, our coastline and our energy resources has put itself in a position where a single industrial accident at a 70 year old plant in Corio can move the price of petrol for 27 million people. We have had every opportunity to build resilience into this system. We have chosen, repeatedly, not to. Last night's fire is not the cause of that fragility. It just made it visible.

I will keep watching this one closely. Watch your local prices, because they will move first.

Reporting based on Petrolmate's real time monitoring of more than 10,000 Australian and New Zealand service stations, plus official statements from the Energy Minister, Fire Rescue Victoria and Viva Energy as at 7am AEST on 16 April 2026.