Newsroom

November 28, 2021

The State Government’s complicity in allowing multi-national oil companies to flout the law and rip Queenslanders off at the bowser must end if Labor expects to retain any shred of environmental credibility, KAP Deputy Leader and Hinchinbrook MP Nick Dametto has said.

Fuel prices have skyrocketed to record-breaking levels in recent weeks, with unleaded prices averaging 163.5c/l in Townsville and 181.2c/l in Brisbane in recent days.

E10 fuel, if not price-gouged by the petroleum companies, is cheaper and burns cleaner (reducing vehicle exhaust particulate emissions by up to 30 per cent).

Since 2018 there has been a four per cent ethanol mandate in Queensland, which equates to 40 per cent of all unleaded fuel in Queensland having to include at least a 10 per cent blend of ethanol.

Current ethanol compliances figures are sitting as low as 20 per cent, meaning most fuel retailers are taking no notice of law. No figures regarding compliance rates have been published since February.

BP, which has approximately 20 per cent of the nation’s fuel market share, does not even have E10 available at many of its stores across the State.

Mr Dametto said a spot check of BPs across Townsville and online research indicated a glaring absence of E10 fuel at most, if not all, BP servos in recent times.

He said complaints had been made to his office about the lack of ethanol-blended fuel available at the servos, and he had now written to BP global chief executive officer Bernard Looney for clarity.

“The Palaszczuk Labor Government has provided what, at best, could be termed ‘faux support’ of the State’s biofuel industry since the KAP succeeded in having a four per cent mandate introduced back in 2018,” Mr Dametto said.

“They have never enforced the mandate, preferring instead to turn a blind eye and allow the big oil companies to have full control of prices at the bowser.

“The current situation is unsustainable; fuel prices are at a record high and we have no genuine fuel security in this country.

“In Ingham we have a potential biofuel project ready to go with the North Queensland Bio-Energy Corporation Limited (NQBE)’s $640 million renewable energy facility that would incorporate raw sugar production, ethanol and power generation.”

Mr Dametto said, given the Federal Government’s “Net Zero by 2050” and the Queensland Government’s “50 per cent renewables by 2030” environment targets, biofuels were more important than ever.

“Burning E10 reduces tail pipe emissions by up to 30 per cent – if everyone who had an unleaded vehicle used E10, that would be the equivalent of removing the emissions from 30 per cent of all vehicles from our roads,” he said.

“It seems like everyone in Queensland is being required to reduce their carbon footprint with the exception of the oil companies, which face no pressure whatsoever to comply with the law.”

Mr Dametto will write to the Queensland Premier and Minister for Energy, Renewables and Hydrogen to ask why the State’s ethanol mandate was being ignored in the face of increasing pressure on Queenslanders to reduce carbon emissions and switch to environmentally-friendly transport options.