A major fire has broken out at Viva Energy’s Corio oil refinery in Geelong, southwest of Melbourne — one of only two refineries left in Australia — deepening fears over global fuel supply at a moment the Iran war is already squeezing the market.
Emergency crews rushed to the site just before midnight Wednesday after reports of explosions and flames. The Corio refinery produces about 120,000 barrels of oil per day, accounting for 50% of the fuel supply for the state of Victoria and 10% of Australia’s total fuel output. It employs over 1,100 people.
No casualties have been reported, but the blaze continued to burn into Thursday morning and has triggered air-quality warnings for surrounding areas. Fire Rescue Victoria said the cause was “equipment failure” and that an investigation would follow.
The refinery remains partially operational — jet fuel and diesel production continues at reduced levels as a safety precaution — but the Australian government warned of impacts on petrol production.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the fire was “not great timing” with Australia’s fuel supplies already strained by the Iran war’s global oil shock. Diesel prices in Australia have doubled in recent weeks, fuel stations have reported shortages amid panic buying, and airlines have begun cutting services as jet fuel costs rise.
“This is not a positive development, but obviously there’s a long way to go in terms of working out just what the impact is,” Bowen told Nine’s Today show.
Viva Energy chief executive Scott Wyatt said two petrol production units were affected but others were undamaged, and that restarting production was secondary to site safety.
For Sri Lanka, the Geelong fire adds a new supply-side strain to an already stretched global market. With the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation already operating under QR-based fuel rationing and paying Iran-war risk premiums, any fresh refinery outage tightens the upstream market for crude and refined products Colombo must compete for.
