Falling fuel stocks raises a bigger question, what happens next?
Thursday, 16 April 2026
Shamubeel Eaqub is the chief economist at Simplicity.
OPINION: Diesel stocks fell from 51.7 to 45.4 days of cover in the latest MBIE update. For me, the direction matters more than the level.
Days of cover is backward-looking. Those ships were contracted over 3 weeks ago. We have no visibility of what is being contracted now, what premiums importers are paying, or whether force majeure notices have been received.
South Korea, which supplies about half of our fuel, imposed mandatory export caps on 13 March.
The pre-war crude pipeline into Korean and Singaporean refineries is running out. This is the crunch point. What comes after is what matters – not answered by the snapshot today.
I reckon 4 pieces of information would close the gap:
Volumes contracted for June, July and August delivery
Delivery windows and originating refineries
Premiums being paid versus pre-crisis benchmarks
- Force majeure notices received in the last, say, 60 days
The importers obviously have this data, but we don’t. The forward picture, aggregated where needed for commercial confidentiality, is what is needed to plan. Maybe we are all good, but we just dont know. If we knew this, my gripes might all be unnecessary.
We should also be conserving now to extend known supply.
NZTA traffic data shows about a 10% fall in heavy vehicle travel since February (chart below). We should extend it gradually to build buffers.
The Fuel Response Plan must be better. We still do not know what triggers rationing, who counts as essential, or how it will be implemented.
The triage logic should not be contentious. Emergency services, food supply chains, medical transport, and grid maintenance at the top. Commercial freight for essential goods next. Discretionary logistics last. Most people would agree with that ordering.
The issue is whether those rules are pre-committed and published, or made up under pressure. Pre-committed rules are faster, fairer, and less politically damaging than ad hoc decisions in a crisis.
Government should be talking to the logistics industry, port operators, and fuel distributors about load consolidation now.
We know what we need to do. Publish the forward book. Conserve fuel. Commit to the rules before we need them.
I wrote about this a month ago (which has been rediscovered and did some media today hence the post while on holiday), it doesn’t take a genius to figure this stuff out, but requires some leadership and decision making.
Not doing so has real cost. Yes price increases are curbing demand, but the slowdown in heavy traffic is unusual (usually heavy traffic doesn't respond much to price changes). It suggests real economic activity is slowing - more linked to uncertainty and fear than price.
Providing greater transparency of where we are, what happens if things worsen, and how essentials of society and eocnomy keep going, would all help.
It doesn’t have to be that hard.