National Road Carriers Association (NRC) welcomes the decision to prioritise freight carriers as part of the Government’s updated Fuel Response Plan in the highly unlikely event New Zealand will move to Phase 4 of the plan.

The Government’s Fuel Response Framework has four escalating phases – 1 Watchful, 2 Precautionary, 3 Managed, 4 Protected, with the country currently in Phase 1 Watchful.

The Government has today announced four categories for how fuel would be prioritised if the country moved to Phase 4 Protected:

• Critical users – priority and uncapped access
• Food and freight – uncapped access to fuel, subject to demand reduction requirements based on fuel-saving plans.
• Commercial and community users – same access as food and freight, but high savings targets in their fuel-saving plans.
• General public – transaction limits at the pump aimed at reducing overall fuel use.

NRC CEO Justin Tighe-Umbers said the Government had done a great job on the Singapore food for fuel deal, which makes supply constraints very unlikely.

“However, the update announced today is prudent planning in the unlikely event New Zealand faces a significant, prolonged supply constraint on fuel.

“Should Government protection of fuel stocks become necessary and allocation measures come into play, including fuel allocations for freight is essential to keeping New Zealand running, so we support all freight being prioritised.”

Tighe-Umbers said NRC was working alongside the Government’s Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority (EECA) on developing guidance for members on fuel saving initiatives and this work would continue regardless of what level the country is in.

“Cost remains our largest concern as every dollar of increased cost is coming from within the economy. Since the start of the conflict diesel has cost the economy an additional billion dollars and it would be naive not to conclude that this degree of cost escalation will impact the economic recovery that was starting to show prior to the Iran conflict.

“NRC is pleased the Government has worked to strengthen supply of diesel and the frank discussions with officials, and they’ve engaged closely with industry since the conflict started.

“The fuel response plan being industry led will give operators the flexibility to keep as much economic activity happening as possible in the highly unlikely event of there being a prolonged disruption to supply.”