r/melbourne • u/seamusisoutside • Apr 15 '26
The Sky is Falling Corio Refinery is on fire.
Fire reported at 11pm. CFA has issued a Watch and Act - Stay Indoors alert.
462
u/HiAustralia Apr 15 '26
Viva’s Geelong Refinery produced petrol, diesel, LPG, jet fuel, and avgas, and provided 50% of Victoria's hydrocarbon needs until today.
Glow is visible from my house in Ormond.
295
u/scissorsgrinder Apr 15 '26
Oh great.... great timing
225
u/-hacks4pancakes- Apr 15 '26
I’m not even a conspiracy bro but the timing is, egh… hope everyone is ok
86
u/quiet_beer Apr 15 '26
Yeah I agree. Has the refinery ever caught fire before? This timing just reeks of some kind of shenanigans.
71
u/herpesderpesdoodoo Apr 15 '26
When I lived around there there were semi regular small fires, but nothing this big. What you're suggesting is either terrorism or an act of war, so a little rumour control would be welcome to stop unnecessary hysteria.
→ More replies (2)43
u/Nova_Terra West Side Apr 15 '26
I heard a crack team of Tasmanians who are known to be jealous of our err.. high house prices and flat whites made a clean get away on this morning's Spirit of Tasmania vowing never to return to the mainland. huge, massive, bigly /s just in case.
23
u/Goatylegs Apr 15 '26
Why in god's name did they start putting Tasmanians on crack?
20
u/phalluss Apr 15 '26
We were born on crack
6
u/PixiePetal Apr 16 '26
It sounds like a funny joke (and it is a little), but drug dependency is actually a major issue in isolated country towns... and unfortunately Tasmania is basically one massive isolated country town.
1
9
u/homeless-advice Apr 15 '26
We're preparing for WW3. USA has SEAL team 6, UK has SAS and Aussies have its ultimate trump card....Tasmanians on Crack
4
2
u/widgeamedoo Apr 16 '26
There is a north wind blowing the smoke towards Tasmania. Maybe they are feeling left out, not having their own refinery and all...
1
7
17
u/IcyMasterpiece5770 Apr 15 '26
No need for conspiracy - they are cranking the refinery to its absolute limit rn. This is what happens
3
5
u/ConsultJimMoriarty Shit Shaker Apr 16 '26
Yeah, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but the timing is definitely a bit sus.
→ More replies (1)7
u/-hacks4pancakes- Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
I mean a lot of things can be true
99.999% of industrial accidents are maintenance or human error
They were probably running at unprecedented and risky levels
A lot of people stand to benefit by Australia’s petrol crisis worsening
1
u/throwinitallawayeay Apr 16 '26
Might want to move that decimal point to the right
1
u/-hacks4pancakes- Apr 16 '26
Ehhhhhhh I work in investigations of … not accidental industrial accidents … fairly biased.
1
u/throwinitallawayeay Apr 16 '26
So you're saying over 90% of incidents are dodgy?!
Yikes, that's a scary figure.1
u/-hacks4pancakes- Apr 16 '26
Mea culpa, that was absolutely a typo 🙃 thought you were arguing .001 v .0001
1
1
u/scissorsgrinder Apr 16 '26
999%?! Holy shit...
1
1
→ More replies (3)10
u/Savings-Yogurt-418 Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
clearly our lord and saviour and jesus and hero and something something Donald j trump did this to keep poor people poorer and keep the rich richer.
Either that or this is Clive Palmer.. Clive always seemed 10x sketchier then he already is to me.. don’t know just his vibes.
something something the upper class is more connected then you think something something
something something every conspiracy theory about a secret society of elites is true something something
either that or big e-bikes, dan Andrews and jacinta Allan did this secret covert operation. no need to think about motives or why they would do this, they DID.
ban big e-bikes and lock up Dan and jacinta NOW before they destroy the state.
something something vote for Pauline Hanson something something.
something something youth crime something something
something something debt something something
something something CFMEU something something
something something One nation will solve every issue on earth something something
something something the evil labor blew up this refinery something something
something something they blew it up to hinder trump something something
9
u/CK_1976 Apr 15 '26
Yes talk back radio?, I would like to talk about immigration and the cost of living.
4
u/Savings-Yogurt-418 Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
‘spews the most heinous opinion you’ve ever heard on anything on migration’
something something labor=bad something something
something something Albanese is the root all our woes including cost of living something something
something something vote one nation something something
refuses to elaborate on how one nation will fix the cost of living crisis
moves on to the daily ‘teen slashes woman with weapon’ or ‘teen crashes e-bike into car‘ coverage
welcome to the 522788th right-wing propaganda corp.
100th ‘progressive’ left-wing propaganda corp here
labor did this thing that will destroy the world
liberals do thing that will destroy the world
independents are the SWEETEST of saints that WOULD NEVER DO ANYTHING WRONG. GOSH i love minor parties IF ONLY people recognised how good they are :D
something something uniparty
and those are the only two types of news in australia.
or your the ABC and instead of being propagandists,
you are morally fucked.
2
u/olucolucolucoluc Apr 16 '26
Hey buddy there is a far simpler answer to all of this than that.
It was me 🙃
8
2
u/roundingcapehorn Apr 16 '26
It’s also running at minimum capacity and is over 70 years old! This kind of incident was not unlikely…
1
u/Duff5OOO Apr 16 '26
It’s also running at minimum capacity
Do you mean the opposite?
1
u/roundingcapehorn Apr 16 '26
I’ve read both! It’s either running at minimum due to lack of crude (I believe) or higher to supply more fuel assuming it has crude.
2
u/Duff5OOO Apr 16 '26
Some more info seems to be out. News was reporting it was running at capacity.
The good news is apparently aviation and diesel fuel is still being processed but at a lower rate as a precaution. IIRC they said the fire was isolated the the high octane fuel processing.
Hopefully that means they can ramp diesel and aviation fuel back up pretty quickly. (not claiming to be an expert on this by any means)
179
u/Feeling-Tutor-6480 Apr 15 '26
I still remember having cold showers when Longford blew up, was not fun
78
u/fist4j Apr 15 '26
I remember my local pizza place (pinkies) undercooking pizza and claiming it was restrictions.
9
3
u/Duff5OOO Apr 16 '26
my local pizza place (pinkies)
I completly forgot about them. We used to get a (IIRC) "monster pizza" from there. Was just a giant rectangle pizza.
1
22
u/jampola Apr 15 '26
Damn I feel old! We had bottled gas since we lived in a part of the SE burbs with no mains gas, my mum and dad were so pissed that my older brother and sister had their mates coming around in the morning for showers 😂
20
u/Pippa_Pug Apr 15 '26
We had an electric hot water service! We were very popular 😂
7
u/mysticgreg Left Lane Closed, Speed Reduced in Tunnel Apr 15 '26
Same! The share house I was living in at the time was one of the few in our court with electric hot water. Got to know a few more of the neighbours during that time!
1
→ More replies (2)2
u/Sillent_Screams Apr 15 '26
I remember at our home getting gas bottles delivered
Now that is old (back in QLD)
3 really big bottles
11
u/Wankeritis Apr 15 '26
Us too. My Grandma’s place had gas for cooking and heating so they (and my mums siblings) came to stay with us during this because we had electric cooking and hot water. It was mayhem with 10 people in the house.
11
7
u/Aphrodisia-x Apr 15 '26
Omg I was talking about this with someone the other day and they didn't remember it! Thought for a sec the whole thing was a fever dream! I remember mum washing my hair in the sink 😆
7
u/Feeling-Tutor-6480 Apr 15 '26
It most definitely happened, was out at RAAF base east sale who had gas powered outdoor showers. Had the quickest cold shower ever at the time
5
6
u/Decado7 Apr 15 '26
Holy fuck dont remind me. My shower was two kettles worth of hot water dumped into the bath then flopping around in it like a beached whale.
5
u/Kageru Apr 15 '26
Yes, you only learn how much you take a hot morning shower for granted when that option vanishes and you realise how cold the water is by default.
5
u/dawnfire1974 Apr 15 '26
I remember that. camping showers sold out. The big suck for me was our hot water tank burst on the day the gas came back on
3
u/Slappyxo Apr 16 '26
That entire saga feels like a fever dream. I remember my mum kept boiling the kettle to heat up water for baths.
2
2
u/Duff5OOO Apr 16 '26
I remember cooking hotdogs IN the kettle. Was proud of myself for that idea as a kid.
2
u/Feeling-Tutor-6480 Apr 16 '26
That's the old hotel special, same with using the iron as a griddle. Absolutely gross, but people do it
2
u/ozSillen Apr 16 '26
I had electric off peak water heater in my unit and electric stove/oven but gas heating. Big guilt as I was looking for work and got roped into "Victorian Gas Emergency Enquiry Line" in a call center as a casual. It was rough speaking to 80+ year old people who just wanted to turn their heater on or have a warm wash.
2
u/neojhun Apr 17 '26
My family just moved to a house with electric water boiler when that happened. We just over 1 week moved in when the ESSO plant blew up. Still remember how lucky we were.
1
u/seven_seacat Apr 16 '26
I remember mixing buckets of warm water using water boiled from the kettle, and having sponge showers. That suuuuuuuuucked.
77
Apr 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
82
u/robot428 Apr 15 '26
Articles say all workers are alive and accounted for, I would expect a lot of them are probably being treated for smoke inhalation, but thank god they all got out.
5
u/Speedbird844 Apr 16 '26
Even if they got out safely, they wouldn't want to be anywhere close to a refinery when this happens. Because cancer.
In fact never buy a house next to, or downwind (noting local wind patterns) from a refinery.
1
42
112
u/throwinitallawayeay Apr 15 '26
This is terrible news. There was a report of a grass fire next to the refinery around 21:45, I wonder if it's arson. Hope all are safe.
17
u/AndrewAuAU Apr 16 '26
For sure. The timing is far too suspicious. Its fun so let's speculate....EV driver started this fire.
8
202
u/hcornea Apr 15 '26
Very curious timing. 🤔
55
u/legsjohnson Apr 15 '26
yeah my immediate thought when I got the abc alert.
13
u/AnonInEquestria Apr 15 '26
Forgive my ignorance, but how does one get ABC News alerts?
24
u/pixiedreamgirl5831 Apr 15 '26
Download the abc news app and you can turn on notifications for breaking news :)
14
u/AnonInEquestria Apr 15 '26
Cheers
Just had a look at the VIC Emergency app to see if it showed up there, 16 vehicles responding since 11pm yesterday, still not under control
4
u/robot428 Apr 15 '26
Download the app and then I think it's in the app settings, you can toggle what alerts you get.
24
u/johndough1st Apr 15 '26
Not really. Likely focused on over production and scaling back or delaying due maintenance. Maybe reducing overtime to reduce costs led to mistakes. We’ll find out soon enough.
3
u/TheMania Apr 16 '26
They did say they were delaying planned maintenance, there's just massive price and political incentives to be producing all you can right now - with somewhat assured govt assistance if you stuff anything up too bad.
In response to the heightened uncertainty, Viva Energy has deferred planned maintenance at its Geelong refinery in Victoria to keep the facility running at maximum capacity.
Viva Energy CEO Scott Wyatt said the Geelong plant has been pushed to its limits since the regional conflict escalated.
“Our Geelong refinery has been running at maximum rates since the recent events in the Middle East, with a focus on maximising diesel production.
I think it's likely that it's not a complete coincidence, that things are operating slightly differently given current state of affairs, and that those differences were sufficient to cause an accident.
→ More replies (2)1
5
1
u/gcross6 Apr 16 '26
If it was something, guaranteed they won't admit it, wouldn't want to cause panic but yeah suspicious is an understatement
76
u/AluminiumAlien CBD Apr 15 '26
Without ever having visited the Viva site, but having worked in a refinery and having contact with people who have experience at Viva, here's some general information to do with what you want.
Refineries, like other manufacturing plants have various units (parts) which do various things. The report in The Age quotes Fire Rescue Victoria assistant chief fire officer Mick McGuinness that the fire is in the Mogas plant section of the refinery. Mogas = petrol.
Based entirely on that statement and without detailed knowledge of the plant setup, this would likely be one of the units which finishes petrol for sale, rather than one of the early units which distills and cracks hydrocarbons.
If that is the case, once the emergency is out of the way, and subject to it being contained to the Mogas unit, and the basics of the incident being understood (which includes management failings) the refinery will continue to operate, at likely reduced capacity, with this unit offline. (See 5). This is subject to the affected unit being able to be isolated and other services critical to the refinery not being impacted (steam, power, data).
People saying they were under pressure and likely "broke rules". Pull your heads in. You never break rules in a refinery.
Like any industry there are risks and controls which are documented in a safety case which gives Viva a license to operate. Viva will need to show the regulator that the incident was identified in their risks, and why the controls failed, causing an incident. They will be under intense pressure from the regulator.
The regulators ability to keep the place shut due to safety concerns will be an interesting "balance" vs the national fuel requirements. I'm glad I don't work there.
Cut it out with conspiracy theories and grass fire rubbish. Whilst I acknowledge that there's kilometres of fence surrounding refineries, the odds of this being a deliberate incident via an outsider vs a unit failure are heavily weighted in it being a unit failure. The basics of your lucense to operate include prohibiting, monitoring and catching trespassers and stopping a fire from outside the refinery getting into a unit.
The affected unit is likely out of service for more than a year, and quite possibly multiple years. You can't go to a shop and buy a "Mogas finishing unit".
I'm sure Viva will have delayed maintenance in order to maintain refinery uptime. Going back to 5, this would be a risk decision, with the risk of failure or reduced efficiency evaluated against any controls required.
6
→ More replies (1)1
Apr 16 '26
[deleted]
3
u/AluminiumAlien CBD Apr 16 '26
When people talk about the refinery being X years old, most of the equipment isn't that old. It'll have been replaced or upgraded multiple times.
The equipment itself will be engineered from the ground up, bespoke and made to order, because every refinery is different. The process might be a commodity in the industry (for example removal of sulphur), but the pipework, how it mounts, instrumentation, power, volume capabilities are designed from the ground up for every unit.
The bits which get tricky are things like instrumentation - the site only has this type of fibre optic supporting these protocols, but the instrumentation generates this type of signal on this protocol.
That's why replacing this units capabilities will be a multi year process.
3
u/Red_Wolf_2 Apr 16 '26
I wonder how replaceable these sorts of parts are giving the age of the refinery or are the interchangeable?
As /u/AluminiumAlien mentioned, basically the whole thing is bespoke. Even if common parts existed between refineries, they would need to be customised to fit this particular installation and all the integration with instrumentation would be incredibly complex.
Sort of like imagining a Picasso is repairable/replaceable with bits from a McCubbin because they're both paintings using canvas, paints and picture frames... It's how they're all put together which makes them unique, and similarly impossible to interchange any components without making either entirely different to the way they were.
To make it even more challenging and time consuming.. All repairs/replacement of parts need to be engineered... Designed/redesigned to do what they need to do, checked, tested, go through multiple stages of approval along the way as well. Due to the nature of petrochem facilities, failure really isn't an acceptable outcome (or things like this happen) so the aim is to get it right first time every time... Which takes a lot more time than just slapping something together and taking massive risks along the way that it might fail catastrophically.
173
u/mesophyte Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
Lots of people going conspiracy-minded here. I have no information on what happened or why, but let me offer an alternative perspective: the plant is likely to have been operating at full capacity and been under quite some pressure to continue doing that. What that does in normal organizations is stressed people (who make more mistakes), and rules like safety guidelines being bent, which also increases risk (edit: and planned maintenance being postponed, also increasing risk).
Another possibility is they were doing changes to the refinery to allow refining a different grade of oil they usually get (to allow, say, for US imports). Any such changes under time pressure also increase chances of mishaps.
Again, I don't know anything about what happened, but this is where my mind goes to, not conspiracy. Occam's Razor.
56
u/AluminiumAlien CBD Apr 15 '26
As someone who has worked in a refinery, yes, I'm sure they were focused on maximising throughput and maintenance would be postponed, but you never "bend" rules.
It's a major hazardous facility under legislation, your entire safety case and right to operate is based on operating within a rules based system.
You start operating outside what is written in the safety case and you will be shut down, regardless of the impact on national fuel security.
That said, all industry involves risks and controlling those risks (it's what's in the safety case). As a general statement people I know who work at Viva tell me the risk tolerance at Viva is higher than my former workplace.
37
u/cromulent-facts Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
you never "bend" rules.
As someone who also has MHF experience, it's not intentional bending of operational rules that is the problem. It's a systems failure through an oversight because someone has worked 29 consecutive 12 hours shifts trying to fix a problem and they make a mistake (BP Texas City explosion in 2005).
It's an old refinery, and standard management of change approaches (and the safety case regime) don't handle aging well. Plus the technical regulator expertise is diminishing as they have only one refinery to oversee in Victoria..
Edit: the rules that do get bent are the overtime rules or fatigue management rules, especially by senior management under stress (the amount of work they do themselves rather than what they ask of others). Often this isn't detected because no one audits how much time the boss is working (or dialling in from home). It's not the hard operational parameters.
I would bet the refinery manager has had late night calls with
Canada(edit - Vitol is French) France every day since the Hormuz crisis started.14
u/mesophyte Apr 15 '26
Fair point that the safety case and legislative framework are exactly what you describe, but "you never bend rules" is a stronger claim than the empirical literature supports, unfortunately including in oil & gas specifically.
Three anchor points:
- Kvalheim & Dahl (2016) surveyed 31,350 sharp-end workers in the Norwegian oil & gas industry, four times over seven years. Work pressure was the single strongest predictor of whether workers complied with rules and procedures. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2016.10.006
- Hashemian & Triantis (2023) systematically reviewed 181 peer-reviewed studies on production pressure and safety. Across sociotechnical systems, sustained production pressure consistently tilts the production-vs-safety balance toward production, and is one of the most repeatedly-identified contributors to accidents. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2022.106045
- Sedlar, Irwin & Martin (2023) reviewed the "normalisation of deviance" literature across high-risk industries. Four core drivers recur: risk normalisation, production pressure, culture, and a lack of negative consequences from small deviations. The pattern is gradual drift that remains invisible until something ignites, which is also why "we've always done it this way and nothing happened" is not reassurance. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2022.11.005
This is the classic "work-as-imagined vs work-as-done" gap in safety science - the formal safety case describes work as imagined by designers and regulators; what actually happens at the sharp end under sustained pressure is work-as-done, and the two routinely diverge. Your own observation that risk tolerance differs between Viva and your former workplace is itself evidence of this.
None of which says anything about Geelong specifically. It says the base rate for "running flat-out under pressure" increasing incident probability is well-established, which was my original point.
1
6
u/cromulent-facts Apr 15 '26
Another possibility is they were doing changes to the refinery to allow refining a different grade of oil they usually get (to allow, say, for US imports). Any such changes under time pressure also increase chances of mishaps.
Just on the technical side, I think this is unlikely (not impossible) because the fire was in the MOGAS unit, which is far downstream of the initial crude distillation processes. The feed to MOGAS should be fairly consistent.
2
u/mesophyte Apr 15 '26
Interesting, thanks. I had no knowledge of the fire's location at the time of my speculation.
3
4
u/Baaastet Apr 15 '26
My thoughts too. Majority of things like this is breakdown in security and communication
9
→ More replies (11)1
60
u/-malcolm-tucker Apr 15 '26
2
u/Savings-Yogurt-418 Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
talk about the kettle calling the bathing toaster black
nevertheless, have you even experienced a power outage? that’s when it actually feels like your in the 1800s.
get out the candles and torches, sir!
18
19
46
u/StrongerSbra9 Apr 15 '26
Not suspicious at all
→ More replies (1)6
15
u/techy99m Apr 15 '26
This was not the news I wanted to see first thing in the morning. How awful. You Geelong residents doing okay with all that smoke?
8
u/No-Caramel-8530 Apr 15 '26
This is why we need baseline renewable energy. For when the petrol doesn’t fill and the oil doesn’t flow.
→ More replies (1)
4
21
u/cromulent-facts Apr 15 '26
60 year old refinery being run hard because there's a shortage.
Unlike the others, I don't think it's necessarily suspicious. The refinery is old and things break when you push them.
→ More replies (1)
16
38
u/TwoDogs48 Apr 15 '26
If the grass fire is responsible and it was deliberately lit the perp should face the law’s full force - no slap on the wrist or excuses on the grounds of mental health. I hope their are no casualties and that it’s under control soon.
4
12
7
u/Red_Wolf_2 Apr 16 '26
Crazy how many people think this is all some sort of conspiracy... There are much more rational explanations. Firstly, the refinery is being pushed to run at higher capacity, which would mean the equipment there would similarly be running more (longer timespans, more often, etc).
Add to that the potential for maintenance being deferred because the downtime can't be afforded under the current pressures of fuel shortages, or maintenance tasks being pushed to be completed faster than they otherwise might normally be and the potential for failures just goes up.
Is it bad timing? Absolutely yes. Does it highlight our lack of redundancy and inability to mitigate loss of capacity? Absolutely yes. Is it some sort of conspiracy to take away fuel and somehow control us? Nope, frankly there are easier and lower risk options.
Events like this take a very long time to recover from. Not only does the cause need to be fully investigated, but repair or reconstruction of things like this typically measure in years. Will we learn any valuable lessons from this incident? Well... We will probably end up with a nice big report, dry in content which will keep people amused for a few days in the media before promptly being forgotten. Meanwhile I'd venture there is maybe a chance the various governments involved might get their act together to safeguard future supply of fuels and other petrochemicals... Not a particularly good one, they far prefer the cheap option of "she'll be right" rather than actually recognising that it will take investment of rather a lot of money to ensure we have the capability to refine our own fuels like we used to be able to do (not counting the ability to source our own crude from local resource fields)
What a shame the Altona refining capability was decommissioned and the site transformed into a pure import and distribution terminal... They only just finished decommissioning late last year!
3
u/Prime_factor Apr 16 '26
It was shut down late last year for the phase in of low sulfur fuels, so it could even be a maintenance mistake or unfamiliarity with a new process.
3
u/Xaropit_ Apr 15 '26
What kind of impact is this likely to have and will it just impact petroleum or also gas and so on?
3
5
5
8
u/owenob1 Apr 15 '26
Such a shame that 4 of our 6 refineries were closed down under Angus Taylor and the LNP mafia.
2
u/spacelama Apr 20 '26
Such a shame that several government terms were wasted on convincing Australians that battery electric is new and scary, and diesel and petrol are good for your retirements 50 years into the future.
2
u/owenob1 Apr 20 '26
Something something political donations something corruption etc etc
(You know the drill)
30
4
u/CleanSun4248 Apr 15 '26
Anyone know if its storage or processing that's on fire?
5
u/CaptainBlemo Apr 15 '26
I've heard reports that it is a single unit failure so that is processing. But yeah it's not just a refinery, it's a primary import terminal for finished product. If they hard shut the whole refinery down it will take weeks to come back on line, months to be at full production (minus the pooched unit and any repairs).
1
u/Feeling-Tutor-6480 Apr 15 '26
Altona Mobil is still operating as an import terminal too as far as I know
1
u/Duff5OOO Apr 16 '26
Reports are they havent shut down production. They are apparently still producing jet fuel and diesel and at a reduced capacity as a precaution.
3
u/Pale_Paleontologist6 Apr 15 '26
Hearing some people online saying its in the av gas facility part rather than the oil part?
3
u/AluminiumAlien CBD Apr 15 '26
The Age reports it is a "Mogas" unit, which is petrol to you and I.
→ More replies (6)2
4
8
u/Consistent-Cow-8867 Apr 15 '26
I'm not normally one to say this kind of thing, but, very strange timing.
Still heavily leaning towards an accident until we get more details but bloody hell at the timing.
→ More replies (9)2
u/t3h Apr 15 '26
See the other chain of replies where someone points out that it's likely been working flat out at absolute maximum capacity, which raises the chances of an accident.
Given that it doesn't seem so suspicious.
6
2
u/Holden179HD Apr 16 '26
I could see the flicker and glow in the sky from my backyard in Werribee last night.
2
u/TwoDogs48 Apr 16 '26
They’re claiming equipment failure, which is worrying in itself. Hopefully the reason will emerge in due course … but full disclosure unlikely.
2
15
4
3
u/_xcrazycatladyx_ Apr 15 '26
Interesting timing. I wonder when the last refinery fire was in Vic?!
2
4
3
4
3
2
u/hypercomms2001 Apr 15 '26
oh fffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccckkkkkkkkkkk!!
→ More replies (1)
2
Apr 15 '26
[deleted]
3
u/Duff5OOO Apr 16 '26
The timing of this incident is EXTREMELY suss.
In the first oil shock in decades with the plant running at maximum output due to critical shortages? Seems if it was going to have a failure, now would be the most likely time.
→ More replies (1)
1
1
1
u/Duff5OOO Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
Some good news: Reports are the facility is still producing jet fuel and diesel. Capacity has be reduced as a precaution though.
Hopefully that means that production can get back to capacity soon even if regular petrol doesn't.
1
1
1
2
1
u/duck4355555 Apr 15 '26
I know it's unethical, but I'd like to selfishly suggest that public transportation remain free next month. I'm willing to continue providing the remaining public transportation for the sake of Mother Earth's health and the stable and safe operation of fuel companies.
1
u/0t15_ Apr 16 '26
Obviously very conspiratorial but how's the timing with that RAAF Drone and the search pattern over Bass Strait.
3
1
0
u/Duros1394 Apr 16 '26
Gonna need to see that CCTV how the hell can this happen you'd think with how precious fuel has suddenly become security for these sites would be ramped up a bit.
I can smell the foul play here.
6
u/Red_Wolf_2 Apr 16 '26
I can smell the foul play here.
It's far more likely that pushing the refinery harder recently meant we ended up with pre-failure conditions becoming catastrophic actual failures.
Same as if you took a car with a flakey transmission out and tried to do skids with it... While it might have kept on going just fine without the extra pressure and loading, slamming it around pushes it to fail spectacularly instead.
1
304
u/the-ahh-guy West is Best Apr 15 '26
Just checked Vic Emergency and yep. A huge stay indoors notice across Geelong and its surrounds.
Also, a perfect time for one of our two refineries nationwide to go up in smoke.