The government of Western Australia (WA) will buy an additional 8mn litres (50,314 bl) of gasoil for its strategic fuel reserve, it said on 23 April, increasing the state-owned stockpile to 12mn litres (75,471 bl).
The additional 8mn litres was offered by miner Rio Tinto and will be purchased from its supplier Viva Energy. The volumes are incremental to WA's normal fuel imports and will be stored in Esperance and Kwinana. The extra supply will allow it to redirect fuel to priority users, including the agricultural sector in the Wheatbelt and Great Southern regions, if required, the government said.
WA announced plans to create its own strategic reserve of gasoil, separate from the national stockpile, earlier this month. An initial 4mn litres of gasoil for the strategic reserve was bought from independent supplier Cambridge Gulf and is stored at Wyndham in the Kimberley region, where it is expected to support power generation in remote communities.
