We did have our own oil refinery (Commonwealth Oil Refinery) but there is an appetite on all sides of politics for privatisation and selling our assets to foreigners.
Shell diesel
- Thread starter dayofthejackal
- Start date
I would consider voting for Chifley but without the petrol rationing.I knew it, you're a closet socialistSigned up for the Greens Party yet?
Sorry CC1701, I cant accept that there is this much variability between fuel suppliers. There is to much subjectivity and perceptions in this evaluation. The calorific heating value in different suppliers of diesel will not vary by as much as the claimed 10%, they probably all come from the same source.
The Caltex refinery in Brisbane was closed for extended maintenance in April because they weren't making enough money out of it so I would suggest NSW and Qld motorists were using imported fuel. Imported from Asian refineries in Singapore, China, South Korea, Japan. Viva in Geelong is only making $US2.40 a barrel profit so that's why there's talk of closing. Given the diverse sources of both crude and refined product there is no real way of knowing the origin of our fuel and brands don't mean much.
That is less than AU$ 0.02 per litre..... Very slim margin indeed; a bit like us primairy producers, the retailer makes the margin, not the grower.
Cheers, Erik.
Cheers, Erik.
There is a constant stream of anonymous tankers unloading at the Gore Bay pipeline terminal in Sydney Harbour. It ends at Shell's tanks and distribution point near Parramatta. There's another Mobil pipeline terminal near that at the prison receiving from ships in Botany Bay, where the independents also have a ship terminal. With all these ships, product brand differences in Sydney are unlikely.
You can see tankers unloading at these three locations on Google maps.
You can see tankers unloading at these three locations on Google maps.
Previous fuel security policy in Australia was guided by memories of the Second World War experience when it was difficult and hazardous to ship oil to Australia. A major oil reserve was established to be processed by our own refineries. In those days our major on land transport fuel was coal but a severe petrol rationing scheme was introduced for private use and kept in place until 1949. Again in the early 1950's our fuel supplies were impacted by war and Australia lagged behind the UK in introducing higher octane fuel because of the requirements of the air war in Korea.
But that was long ago and in a globalist world the notion of an Australian strategic reserve of oil was quietly abandoned. America of course has always kept a large strategic reserve of oil as well as other materials and there are major underground storages in Texas and Louisiana.
Fast forward to 2020 and globalism has taken a hit, international relations are not what they were and tacticians are looking at the possibility of a war in North Asia. Suddenly the idea of closing our refineries and importing our fuel in tanker loads of refined product from low cost Asian refineries through contested seas appears less attractive. So there may be some government pressure to keep onshore refining capacity.
But that was long ago and in a globalist world the notion of an Australian strategic reserve of oil was quietly abandoned. America of course has always kept a large strategic reserve of oil as well as other materials and there are major underground storages in Texas and Louisiana.
Fast forward to 2020 and globalism has taken a hit, international relations are not what they were and tacticians are looking at the possibility of a war in North Asia. Suddenly the idea of closing our refineries and importing our fuel in tanker loads of refined product from low cost Asian refineries through contested seas appears less attractive. So there may be some government pressure to keep onshore refining capacity.
The ideological post war rationing of many things besides fuel was destructive and caused hardship. Fortunately it ended with Chifley's government. Many of the ridiculous distortions can still be seen in surviving post-war housing and construction. UK had to put up with it longer.
Aussies didn't have rationing anywhere like they did in the UK! It didn't end there until 1954, I can remember as a kid trotting down to the butcher's in Erdington, Birmingham in the fifties with a ration book to pick up the meagre meat allowance for our family of seven. Whilst Seasink seems to think that it was a ridiculous arrangement I'd just like him to imagine what Britain or Australia would have looked like within a week of war being declared without rationing. (Actually, rationing was introduced 4 months after war was declared.) Forget toilet paper, there would have been nothing left on the shelves for anyone and the government's knew that! Incidentally, the health of all Britons improved dramatically through the course of WW2 because it was the nutritional scientists who specified what you could eat and how much of it, not some politician. Australia was still feeding a lot of the world after WW2 and Aussie rationing was part of that scenario.
An addendum: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/4/newsid_3818000/3818563.stm
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Australia had food rationing after the war so we could ship as much as possible to Britain which was in a bad way. (Something they forgot in 1970). But our ration allowances were generous. By 1947 everyone was tired of rationing and shortages, worse in England with a bad winter and coal strikes, but we had our own power strikes and blackouts. Reading Motor Manual from the period there is a growing frustration at the lack of cars and of course petrol rationing which people hated. Many an engine ruined from running on power kerosene. I was surprised at how quickly we slipped into supermarket rationing during the present crisis and how smoothly it went.
I still have some of my unused ration tickets. You should have heard what my elders used to say about it.
It wan't done to help Britain, too many things were rationed. Chifley was more interested in a left wing dream than pragmatism or economic reconstruction. There were numerous class-war rationing oddities. When he went away, the crippling shortages very rapidly went away too. Industry quickly stepped up production.
Houses were severely limited in size, no matter your wealth, if you could get rationed materials, and this was a time when there were so many new post-war marriages. House building was slowed by shortages. There were suburbs where every second or third family lived in a garage, deliberately built first for somewhere to live. Commercial construction suffered badly also, though governments were able to pay their way around the shortages and rations.
One extraordinary example of taxpayers' money beating federal imposed artificial shortages is the brick very large original building of the University of NSW. When steel could not be found for columns they built load bearing sections in brick. Most of the building is load bearing. The floors were uneconomically redesigned when reo ran low. The roof spans were framed in timber for the same reason, and wait for it -- sheeted at exorbitant cost with corrugated copper (which later blew off). That long span roof had a ridiculous one way pitch, to avoid some gutters and downpipes. Windows presented a unique problem too - they were the standard steel framed type. When that ran short they were rolled in solid bronze. Copper was rationed too, but only governments could afford that sort of extravagance, so they got supplies. I don't know what manipulation was performed to obtain so many extra bricks.
It wan't done to help Britain, too many things were rationed. Chifley was more interested in a left wing dream than pragmatism or economic reconstruction. There were numerous class-war rationing oddities. When he went away, the crippling shortages very rapidly went away too. Industry quickly stepped up production.
Houses were severely limited in size, no matter your wealth, if you could get rationed materials, and this was a time when there were so many new post-war marriages. House building was slowed by shortages. There were suburbs where every second or third family lived in a garage, deliberately built first for somewhere to live. Commercial construction suffered badly also, though governments were able to pay their way around the shortages and rations.
One extraordinary example of taxpayers' money beating federal imposed artificial shortages is the brick very large original building of the University of NSW. When steel could not be found for columns they built load bearing sections in brick. Most of the building is load bearing. The floors were uneconomically redesigned when reo ran low. The roof spans were framed in timber for the same reason, and wait for it -- sheeted at exorbitant cost with corrugated copper (which later blew off). That long span roof had a ridiculous one way pitch, to avoid some gutters and downpipes. Windows presented a unique problem too - they were the standard steel framed type. When that ran short they were rolled in solid bronze. Copper was rationed too, but only governments could afford that sort of extravagance, so they got supplies. I don't know what manipulation was performed to obtain so many extra bricks.
I think Kenfuego scripted your intro for you! Talk about ideological block! The following link connects the postwar Australian recovery to the COVID-19 one.............https://theconversation.com/rebuild...e-successes-of-post-war-reconstruction-137899
My father once bought another motorcycle for its petrol rations and new front tyre.
Roger
Roger
From my reading of the period, postwar prosperity may have been just around the corner but it seemed a long time coming. The country was broke after the war, it took a long time to get things working again and there was a "dollar crisis '. Everybody wanted to ship stuff around the world and it was hard to get shipping. You couldn't get anything out of the Americans without hard cash and we had very few U.S. dollars. So not many of the American cars everyone wanted and by 1951 you couldn't get a salesman to take an order. Cars were ordered not bought and delivery could be three years. But the French liked the Australian pound and that's why we got French cars. You could get a new American car from France for twice the Australian list which is the price you had to pay to a speculator for local delivery. That's how Alec Chapman found the 203, he had been sent to France after surplus Dodge army trucks. It wasn't until 1948 that car sales topped 1928. Anyway the Korean War and the wool boom marked prosperity and inflation in spectacular fashion in 1950. The Merino was gold. There are still Merino blokes around the country dreaming those days will return. People were poor enough after the war but everything was on the up and there was no unemployment. School leavers had their choice of apprenticeships. There were memories of the depressed 1930's so nobody was complaining.
My father bought a new Austin A40 tourer in 1951 because you could get one quicker than anything else. It was way slower rhan the 500 Norton it replaced but definitely a comfort upgrade.
Roger
Roger