Stephen Mayne

So any big plant that shuts down or looks to shut down these days, governments are writing big checks to keep them open, which is this whole self-sufficiency, sovereign capability narrative.

So it's completely flipped now.

And if the car companies were still here today, we'd be bailing them out big time from a sovereign capability point of view.

It is interesting that Sydney got left with none.

I mean, Shell had one on the Parramatta River and then Ampol had one as well.

So Sydney had two and then they went to zero.

So our biggest city does not have a single refinery.

I guess that goes to the value of the land.

You'd just resurrect, wouldn't you?

Like you'd resurrect the mobile refinery in Melbourne's western suburbs or, I mean, you'd start on a site where, I mean, because just imagine the NIMBY planning, you know, let's build a new refinery, I mean.

Well, it's like any petrol station that closes, Helen.

It's a massive clean-up cost.

Often it gets socialised.

Owners of petrol stations in the bush particularly, they'll often just walk away and hand it over to the council or the government because it's more expensive to clean it up than the value of the land in the first place.

So they're permanently...

So you don't get too many housing developments on old oil refinery sites, that's for sure.

They get turned into import terminals mainly, so they can still handle fuel, but just don't process it.

It is interesting, isn't it, how you can have all the Paris agreements you like, but the biggest oil shock in history is actually going to turbocharge the transition to clean energy.

We'll probably give it the biggest kick-along, bigger than any sort of government dictate or global agreement can give.

Because you're right, it's cheaper and it can't be disrupted.