Chapter 1: What questions do listeners have about the energy crisis?
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Welcome to Fuelcast, I'm Carrington Clark and this is your source to stay on top of the numbers behind the ongoing global energy crisis. It's Friday, May the 15th, we're recording mid-morning, let's have a look at the figures. The price of Brent Crude has fallen slightly to $106 a barrel since we last checked in.
The national average price of unleaded has ticked up by $0.01 to $1.85 per litre and the national average price of diesel has dropped to $2.39 per litre. Today, I'm joined by Alan Kohler to dig into some of your questions. Good morning, Alan. Morning, Carrington.
We get a lot of good questions from listeners in the ABC Business Daily inbox, and it's no surprise that many of them have to do with... fuel. So today for Fuelcast, we're going to go ahead and answer some of them. A reminder that if you have a burning question about the energy crisis, we're here to help. So please do keep those questions coming in.
Alan, Bruce has written in and asked, has the Geelong refinery returned to full production? And has there been any findings on what caused the fire? Now we've discussed the the Geelong fire here on Fuelcast before. You've chatted with the Viva Energy CEO, Scott Wyatt, in the days after the blaze. Alan, do you have any answers for us?
Yes, well, I followed up this morning and what they call the cracker, which is the RCCU, which stands for Residue Catalytic Cracking Unit, is still offline. So the production of diesel and jet fuel is still at 80%. Petrol is 60%. While the cracker is offline, they expect to get it going again in June, at which point production will go to 90% of capacity.
So why it's not 100%, I'm not sure, but there it is. As for what caused the fire, they haven't yet said. They know yet.
Alan, those images were quite extraordinary, given they happened during the energy crisis. But I guess since that time, the government has also managed, as they say, to get these extra shipments of diesel. When we look at the prices on diesel at the moment, I mean, it hasn't come back to what it was before, but it hasn't seemed to have gotten much worse of late.
But are you concerned that if the refinery is out of action a little bit longer than they hope to get it back, that that could cause a bit of a crunch here in Australia?
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Chapter 2: Has the Geelong refinery returned to full production after the fire?
Today's interview is with Hugh Marks, our boss.
Our boss. Our boss. the CEO of the ABC and former chief executive of the Nine Network. So I'm asking him not just about what he's going to do with the ABC but his views about television and broadcasting future in general and specifically commercial TV.
Should be fascinating. I shall be listening in. Now, I will be away for the next two weeks. ABC business reporter Dan Ziffer will be in the chair for me for the next fortnight, but you can still get your episodes of Fuelcast in your feeds, bringing you the latest on the energy headlines. Just search ABC Business Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Catch you in a couple of weeks, Alan. See you.
Have a good break, Carrington.