Television Interview, Sunrise

SUBJECTS: Geelong Viva Refinery Fire; Fuel Supply

NATALIE BARR, HOST: Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles joins us live in Geelong. Good morning to you. The Prime Minister has flown home early because of this refinery fire. How serious is the situation?

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Well, it's been a serious incident, there's no doubt about that. I think the first thing I would want to say is, very thankfully no one was hurt or injured and that it happened at 11:15 at night, is something which we should be thankful for because there weren't as many people around. Obviously, people are focused on what is the impact in terms of output. I was speaking with Scott Wyatt, the CEO of Viva yesterday. Actually, the company is relatively hopeful that this will have a minimal impact on supplies going forward. So, it mainly affected the fuel line, which is petrol, which is the more prevalent fuel that we've got. So, diesel and jet fuel, which are the fuel types, which are more under pressure, were not affected. And the company feels that it will be able to get the refinery back up running pretty quickly. I mean, they're still doing assessments. So, there's a reasonably optimistic outlook actually from the company about the impact of this.

MATT SHIRVINGTON, HOST: About 100,000 barrels coming out of that refinery each and every day. Terrible timing, isn't it? I mean, given the fuel crisis already. The PM, we know he wants to be here on the ground, but did he cut his Asian trip short? Are we going to get the fuel that we need from the region?

MARLES: Well, the Prime Minister last week in Singapore, this week in Brunei, Malaysia, has been speaking with regional leaders with whom we are energy partners, to do everything we can to assure supply of fuel. I mean, East Asia is the area which is most affected by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. But that said, the refineries in the broader region are accessing fuel from different parts of the world and we are an energy partner to them. We're a significant supplier of gas and some countries, coal. And so, we are seeking to say that partnership needs to hold in this moment and countries have been really responsive to the Prime Minister. So, you know, we're doing everything we can to make sure that we are getting all the supply to the country that we can.

BARR: Yeah, look, we know the Government's working hard, but if this impact has been 20% of the refinery's output and, and Viva supplies 25% of Australia's fuel requirements, or rough figures, can you say this won't have an impact on our fuel supplies?

MARLES: Well, look, what I can say is in speaking with the CEO of the company, they feel that it will have a relatively minimal impact. And the reason for that is that the type of fuel that we have the most prevalence of right now is petrol for cars and that is the fuel train here that was affected by the fire. And they do feel that they'll be able to cover, with imports of petrol, whatever is lost in terms of production in the short term. They're also pretty hopeful they can get the refinery up and running relatively quickly as well. So, I mean, we're pretty hopeful that this will have a minimal impact. Obviously, the timing of this is terrible. It is a significant event. I'm not trying to play that down, but I know that the company is working overtime to do everything it can here. And as I say, they are pretty optimistic that it will have a relatively minimal impact.

SHIRVINGTON: It's just terrible timing, isn't it? Richard Marles. Really appreciate your time. Anthony Albanese will join you there at around 7:30 this morning. We'll cover that as well. Thank you.

MARLES: Thank you.

ENDS