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Australia’s major airlines are not facing any “immediate” issues with fuel supply despite the Iran conflict, Transport Minister Catherine King has said.
Speaking to ABC Radio National, Minister King said she had “heard reports” that China had told its oil refineries to halt exports, but that Qantas and Virgin were in a position to handle at least any short-term disruptions.
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“I’m speaking almost daily, and my Department on a daily basis with the aviation industry, and particularly to Qantas and Virgin. They’re well placed to withstand what is occurring globally,” the minister said.
“At the moment, they are telling me there is no immediate or short-term issue in relation to jet fuel supply. And then we obviously have our minimum stock holding obligations as well. So we don’t see any immediate issue in terms of flights.”
The minister’s comments come as Qantas hikes international ticket prices in response to rising fuel costs, while Air New Zealand is set to cut more than 1,000 flights across the next couple of months.
“Obviously, the price of jet fuel is having some impact on our aviation industry, and we’re watching that fairly closely, but both of the airlines are telling us that they are okay at the moment, and we’ll continue to monitor that,” she said.
According to Minister King, as of Monday, Australia had 29 days of jet fuel in its minimum stock obligation, 30 days of diesel, and 37 days of petrol.
“It’s clear, obviously, the longer that the war continues, the greater the impacts will be felt, not just by us, but obviously the Asia Pacific region overall. And we’ll continue to monitor those events as they occur,” she said.
“But at this stage, all of the ships that were planned to come into Australia are coming in. The fuel supply is holding.”
The potential for fuel disruptions has also raised the profile of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), with Sydney Airport chief executive Scott Charlton telling a bioenergy conference last week that Australia should look to invest more heavily in a sovereign SAF industry.
According to Charlton, his airport alone accounts for around 40 per cent of Australia’s aviation fuel use, or around nine million litres per day.
“At any given time, we’re typically sitting on around 25 days of fuel supply across our ecosystem at the airport, our pipelines and local storage. That gives you a sense of the scale required to keep aircraft moving every day,” said Charlton.
“The reliability of that 25-day supply depends on international shipping lanes, global refining capacity and geopolitical stability.
“And when you look at the world today – with conflict in the Middle East and growing tension across global energy markets – you start to see why fuel security matters just as much as emissions.
“Last week in Parliament, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy confirmed that Australia holds just over a month of liquid fuel stocks across petrol, diesel and jet fuel. And this is why Sustainable Aviation Fuel is so important on multiple fronts.”
Speaking at this week’s 2026 Secure the Future: Green Energy Forum in Townsville, business leaders, including Airbus’ chief representative for Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, Stephen Forshaw, have again called for a domestic SAF mandate to spur local industry.
“Demand drivers for SAF, accompanying the significant measures to support production announced by the Government last year, will stimulate local biofuel production. In turn, this can restore Australia as a fuel-producing country over coming years back to levels not seen since the closure of refineries in the past decade,” said Forshaw.
“We can make fuel from biomass we have above the ground instead of being dependent on the extraction of crude oil from below the ground. Innovation opens a significant opportunity for Australia to become more resilient.
“The right balance in policy settings between supply side and demand drivers will provide the signal needed for investors to commit to new local sustainable aviation fuel projects and help safeguard Australia’s long-term fuel supply. And this benefits our regions, with local jobs, investment and economic development.
“We want to use our feedstock here to produce fuels here, power our industry here and capture the economic and security benefits here, rather than export our raw commodities for others to process.”
Jet fuel prices have risen as much as 150 per cent since the Middle East conflict began.
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says:The fuel supply problem here in Oz, apart from the lack of refineries points to that old problem, JIT which effects inventory costs. That’s fine when it is 8-8ths blue sky but a few hickups and a big problem for the whole country. Clearly a 30 day buffer is totally inadequate and whoever is promoting that level has to be retrained or, released to pasture.